And not one is as mad as me, for reasons that will become apparent.
In the end, why should the Desperate Housewives be quite so desperate? They’re rich, good-looking and very thin. Their appliances all work. They have time to apply lip gloss.
If you want to know desperate, just come this way…
Things are getting
desperate. I must try and
re-engage her with reality.
I shout out to her: ‘Do you
know where the shin-guards
are? Did we ever get them
out of the car from last
week?’ To which she
responds: ‘In Moscow the
trees on the boulevards are
in leaf, and dust rises from
the roads.’
For the first time in ages our bank account has struggled into the serious black. At one point there’s a couple of thousand bucks in there, uncommitted cash, just sitting about, winking at me. I feel like Kerry Packer. I begin contemplating all sorts of rash behaviour: paying off loans, adding to my super, buying a pair of jeans without a big hole in the crotch. It’s a moment of liberation. Which is when every appliance in our house drops dead. Fridge, oven, video and dryer. It is as if they were signalling to each other: ‘Quick, the bastard is about to get ahead. Let’s do something. Everyone together now: die.’
All the appliances go within ten days of each other. Not one appliance can be fixed. All need to be replaced. We are now heavily in debt. Mr Bung Lee and Mr Hardly Normal are both a lot richer.
First to go is the fridge. Suddenly, in the middle of the night, it emits a low, straining growl, like that of a wounded animal. Apparently, fridges always die in the middle of the night. I guess they are alone in their task of crisping the vegetables and fall victim to existential dread. ‘What’s it all for?’ whines the fridge. ‘What’s in it for me?’
By morning the corpse is already warm. A pool of dirty water spreads over the floor, like a bloodstain in a Tarantino movie. Due to my mass-manufacturing cooking methods, I am staring at my own body weight in defrosted bolognaise sauce.
‘I am staring at my own body weight in defrosted bolognaise sauce,’ I say to Jocasta.
‘Don’t exaggerate,’ says Jocasta, bleakly. ‘There’d only be 100 kilos in there, max.’
I find her comments insulting, and so distract myself with the Yellow Pages. The Fridge Man is called. He arrives and declares there is no hope.
I set out on my first trip to Mr Bung Lee. It’s twenty years since I have bought a fridge and things have changed. The fridges all have ice-makers, water dispensers and, in one case, internet access. This, presumably, is so the fridge can better access your banking details, and time the perfect moment to stop working.
One model even records the pattern of your fridge usage, turning up the cold during periods in which you habitually open the door: in my case, the half-hour between 9.30 and 10.00 every night, during which I simply cannot believe we have run out of beer. I open the fridge, root around, close the fridge, sigh and then open the door once more.
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