Looking through our warranty and instruction manual box is a walk down Memory Lane. It's also another one of those moments where I must confront the discrepancy between my self-image - not acquisitive - and my inventory, which is still large, even on day 198.
I just read a very interesting article about refrigerators. Americans have much largers ones than Europeans. They use a lot of energy - more than any other appliance, because they run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. If you fill them up, they require less energy, which means spending more at places like Costco, which (what do you know?) means eating more. Replacing your refrigerator with a smaller model strikes me as even more radical than replacing your car with a bicycle. Where would you even buy a small refrigerator? Would you have to remodel your kitchen, because don't most cupboards have a standard (very large) refrigerator opening?
Our warranties and instruction manuals are a guide to every appliance we own now or have owned in the past sixteen years, except for the warranties and manuals I undoubtedly lost before I created this box. In the "get rid of" category are: two manuals for electric ranges (I don't recall ever purchasing an electric range) and one for a Whirlpool double-over gas range that exploded within weeks of our buying it; a CuisinArt toaster manual; a GE manual for a sound system that came with this house, which I just got rid of a few weeks ago (too bad I didn't know I had the manual or I would have included it); a cordless telephone user's guide (remind me, what is a cordless telephone again?); an instruction manual for an Ibanez electric bass (no, it doesn't teach you how to be a musician); two Bosch dishwasher instruction manuals (we've had to replace our dishwashers every couple of years - we blame the kids); an alarm clock portable speaker for iPod limited warranty (did we ever own one of those? we don't now); caution warnings for an Easy-Bake Oven; installation guide for an Anderson storm door; a manual for Alesis Studio Electronics (what the hell is that?); the Glyph GCR Series Quickstart Manual (ditto); a Farberware coffee percolator use & care instructions (sorry, it's already busted); owner's manuals for two TVs that we no longer own.
Taken all together, it's a pretty depressing list. All that stuff, bought, used and forgotten, parked in a junkyard most likely. Next time, perhaps I'll just wash the dishes by hand, or make my own music. But let's face it, I'm not going to eat my food raw.
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