Full Circle: Beat tired before electric mixers
Published 9:35 am Friday, July 24, 2015
I am awash in agony — my right arm screaming for relief. Yet, I am only half way finished with so very far still to go. Five minutes more? Six? Arrgghh!
I must not allow myself to stop. Not only is Mom counting on me, but also my dad, brothers and sister. Thus I continue spinning, spinning — relentlessly spinning the little knob on our manual mixer. As I do so I watch the beaters whirl in their circumrotations. It does no good to invoke them to go faster for I’m going at my top speed. To be sure, I am the sole engineer of this project and turning this thing is my responsibility. Moreover I must perform to the best of my ability for if I were to fail, disappointment and world unrest would follow. And I would be to blame.
You see, I am in charge of the whipped cream. Yes, it is my solemn obligation to make certain it is ready for tonight’s dessert.
I am reminded all over again of why it is they call this thing I’m dealing with a beater. I’m just not certain if they’re referring to the cream or the person whipping it. Either way, I’m beat, that’s for sure. And, oh, how it hurts! Can’t someone put a wee motor on this thing and help me out here? I mean if the world has been able to come up with the wheel, plastic, the light bulb, sliced bread and the girdle, why not a motorized mixer?
The year is 1946, and I am 8 years old. Admittedly, even though my arm hurts like blue blazes, I will confess to one enormous benefit to being the whipped cream maker. I get to lick the beaters. Still, I realize — yes, I do! — that there are children somewhere out there whose tasks are much harder than mine. I get that. But, it’s like this. Those unfortunate children may be tending man-eating goats or chopping petrified wood or scrubbing a coal-blackened hearth, but their work is not real to me. Whipped cream is! And feeling sorry for those kids does not make my arm hurt any less!
The catch in all this is that my mom actually has a modern 1940s kitchen. Indeed, she is a forerunner in the world of mechanical help. For instance, she already owns a dishwasher. This is quite a remarkably big deal as she is a very early consumer of such helping appliances. To be sure, it is a true wonder of a machine, relieving us from the scourge of dishpan hands. Moreover, it is as streamlined as all get out with its all-over white enamel body and lift-up top — the place where Mom spreads out the Austin Daily Herald for her evening read as the water swishing over the dinner dishes below provides a background accompaniment to the news. (Odd how all these many, many years later, I still associate the Herald with the sound of sloshing water.)
Our dishwasher is a double unit divided equally on both sides. On the right is the large two-tiered dishwasher, while on the left there is a full sink with a generous cupboard down below. Its lines are so stylishly clean and sleek that it stays in fashion for decades. Furthermore our dishwasher can match the endurance of an army tank and is as reliable as the sunrise.
Many years later as an adult, I took a good look at Mom’s dishwasher. Just how many years had it been serving her, anyway? I started counting. At least 20. Next I calculated how many times it had run. Let’s see, three times a day, times 352 days a year, times 20 years … 21,120 times give or take a few runs! Holy cow! That was even longer than Ma Perkins had been on the radio!!
I got all excited. On the spot I decided to write to General Electric and tell them of the astonishing success of their product. I knew in my soul that when they read my letter extolling the dependability of their machine they’d probably feature Mom in an ad, give her a few cases of dishwashing soap or best of all present her with a brand new dishwasher! In my heart of hearts, I was counting on the last option.
I mailed off my letter making certain to write the 21,120 in great big giant oversized numbers so they wouldn’t miss it. Then I waited for a big box to arrive. Well, General Electric wasn’t in any hurry. In fact, General Electric wasn’t in the least bit moved by the flattery. Some weeks later I received — not a new dishwasher, mind you — but instead a typewritten letter. It stated that they were pleased with their machine’s reliability and thanked me for sharing. Was that all? Well, pooh! So much for customer loyalty.
It makes me wonder if General Electric didn’t put my letter in a tall stack of other satisfied customer’s letters, proving to themselves by the growing height of the pile how good their product was. It also makes me wonder if the stack grew so tall that one day G.E. began questioning the superior quality of their products.
I’m thinking the talk around the board room table went something like this. “Let’s see … how could we possibly sell more dishwashers if the ones we’re making now last so long? Two, three, four decades? Yiiikes! A good deal for the customer, but a bad deal for G.E.! Perhaps — just perhaps — if we lowered our standards, our dishwashers would break down more quickly. And wouldn’t that cause our customers — who by now are sold on never having to wash another dish by hand — to buy another one? Wouldn’t that double our sales? Hmmmm………”
And not only did our appliances begin to break more frequently, but to add salt to our consumer wounds, some devious soul in the marketing department came up with the scurrilous idea of the extended warranty plan. By now it’s everywhere! What really appalls me is the sales people don’t even surreptitiously sneak this contract into the sale. No, no! Right there — while we’re digging deep into our purses to pay for the thing — we’re blatantly presented with the extended plan because there is some likelihood this new purchase is going to break down. And it will happen sooner than later. What a shameful way for a company to increase their profits!
Do any of you remember when there was trust in buying an appliance? That you depended upon the thing to last? We never dreamed we’d be asked to pay more money on the day of the purchase because there is a strong chance of the thing breaking down. To me, that sounds like the pre-nuptial agreement at a wedding where the skeptical couple is hedging their bets the union won’t last.
Astonishingly, Mom’s dishwasher splashed on well into the ‘70s. The only repair that was ever required was replacing the dinky spring on the soap dispenser. It held together the two halves of a tiny metal box (about 1.5” x 1.5” square). The spring unhinged itself allowing the soap granules to fall into the swirling water below. I’ll wager you a bet, the new spring didn’t cost more than a quarter. And let me tell you, my spring would have sprung too, if I had been spranging three times a day for 30 years!
Mom did eventually get an electric mixer. It was well after I left home, so I didn’t often benefit from its practicality. It certainly made light of the task of whipping cream, however, by banishing the aching arm syndrome, but it introduced the new danger of getting one’s fingers caught in the vortex of the whirling beaters. And even worse, accidentally flipping the switch in mid-lick!