Carol’s Column

They really don’t make things the way they used to

They really don't make things the way they used to in my grandfather's day. In his time, when something was built, it stood for ever.

Take our house. We have the only house in South Africa with a severe case of dandruff.

"What do you mean?" said my husband when I pointed it out to him.

"Look at the paint. it's peeling off the walls and it looks just like dandruff," I replied.

This might have been acceptable had our house been painted at the turn of last century, but it was painted only a year ago.

It's appalling really when you consider that the paintwork in the Pharaohs’ tombs at the Valley of the Kings in Egypt is still as good as new and at least 3 000 years old.

When we moved to this present house with dandruff, I had to replace Gretchen the fridge with something more slender because the gap between the new kitchen cupboards was too narrow.

A family heirloom, Gretchen, ancient and massive, had belonged to my grandparents, then parents.

The door was so heavy that you needed a course in weightlifting before you could open it. Enormous, you could fit an entire mother-in-law and one cow inside and there would still be abundant room.

In place of Gretchen we invested in a fancy slimline effort which theoretically promised to defrost and clean itself.

It worked fairly for a year and a bit until a few weeks ago when we noticed a strange smell in the kitchen.

That particular night, we had guests for dinner and they all began shifting uncomfortably on their seats.

"Is the dog sitting under the table?" murmured somebody.

My husband was more direct. "Is that you?" he asked me tactfully.

It was a hot evening, the temperature around the table rose as did the less than pleasant fragrance.

I only realised it was the fridge and not somebody suffering from excess flatulence when I fetched the frozen dessert, opened the fridge and was bowled over by the horrible pong.

It took several visits for a specialist refrigerator mechanic to diagnose that the slimline effort was chronically ill and, besides everything else, needed to be re-gassed.

This, he told me, would cost almost as much as a new fridge.

"Throw it out," he said. So I did.

I put it on the pavement hoping that somebody would come by and reclaim it.

"A piece of rubbish," said my 85-year-old mother when she saw it there.

Meanwhile, I have torn the new kitchen cupboards down and re-installed Gretchen whom I know will steadily shudder her way into the next century.

In one week the spokes on my bicycle bent, the lawnmower expired, our chimney blew into the neighbour's garden after a particularly strong gust of wind, the floorboards are rising from what they say is a hidden underground river and, to top it all, I cracked two crowned teeth on a piece of biltong.

The new security gate we've just installed to keep out all the burglars who take one look at our house with dandruff and sensibly go straight on to the house next door, doesn't work. "Faulty motor," said the electrician.

"Faulty electrical work," said the man who installed it.

"A piece of rubbish," said my mother.

Yesterday, when my husband climbed over to open it manually, he slipped and fell, tearing the ligament in his small left finger.

"You see, they don't make things the way they used to," said my mother.

Thank heavens that's all she said. Sometimes she can be a tad acerbic.

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