Uh oh. With the prospect of setting up house in front of us for the first time in about a bazillion years (read: “3″) M and I have gone a little bit crazy on the homewares thing. In the beginning (oooh, all of about a week ago) our justification was that if we were going to be living in a trailer, then by god, we were going to do it in style. Our NSW friends began the whole thing when they bought us a Fiuri knife set…and it just went on from there… And thus we purchased a sexy kettle, a gogglingly good frypan, cheap K-Mart tab top curtains and a chopping board. Cut to today when I bought my first ever whitegood over $100 (actually - it was a long way past that), justifying the purchase with:
“It’s very environmentally friendly. The NSW and WA governments give you water-saving rebates for buying one…too bad I’m in Victoria. It’s small. It’ll last forEVER.”

But the truth was, basically, that I knew it kicked arse. After schlepping our clothes and bedding through a variety of coin laundries in NSW, I put two loads through J’s Maytag front loader. I almost didn’t recognise them when they emerged. They were at least three shades brighter. They were, in fact, clean.
“What the hell is ‘Maytag’?” I asked in a way that said I’d spent too long in Hervey Bay.
“It’s a very styley washing machine that I picked out when my mum offered to buy us one,” she said. Or something to that effect.
I was smitten.
This morning I went to Grays Auctions, stout of heart, determined to get us one for under its registered retail price (my aim in all conquests). As someone who had used their grandma’s tiny washing machine from 1991 until 2005, I felt that my obsession was a teeny bit justified. And felt even better about it when my sister told me how much their front loader had cost. I hung around for about two hours before the bidding got to the machine of my dreams (there were only two 6kg ones there, so I had to be quick).

I’ve never bidded on anything before, but instead of my usual stagefright, I had determination. I bidded against another guy, who was equally keen. Luckily we were the only two who were intent on buying, and ended up with one each. It cost half of the registered retail price, even with the extra 12.5% that they slug you as a ‘buyers premium’. The process of paying what I owed and actually getting my hands on The Whitegood, was very, very long. I had to help some guy lift a stove into his tiny hatchback in order to make off with the trolley he was using. I then found out that, even though it’s quite small, The Whitegood weighed equivalent to at least two or three Fender Twins. So then I had to get help from another guy, who took pity on me dragging it behind me on a trolley.

Finally I got it back to the trailer (where, btw, we won’t be living until Thursday night) and M lavished it with praise. It fits in the bathroom beautifully, and J sent me a congratulatory text and recommended the ‘handwashing cycle’. I can’t wait to use it.

M meanwhile, had done a sterling job on cleaning the kitchen and also washing down the walls of the loungeroom. Poor thing. The kitchen was SO gross that he had to go out into the fresh air three times to stop himself wanting to be sick. It was coated in truckloads of hideous mank - the kind you can imagine crawling all over your body if you accidentally fell asleep there. Oven cleaner didn’t even cut it - he had to hack away at the mank using his fishing knife. Oh the humanity. We were given about three days free rent due to the grossness, but it should have been at least a week, as we’ve had to steam the carpet twice as well. Grrr.