But we also learned a couple of lessons about false economy... For example, we bought a cd player for ten pounds - and when we got it home it had an awful squeak. But there's no come-back on electrical items bought at car-boot sales, so we just had to put that down to experience.
Another item we bought was a microwave, for fifteen pounds. We were right at the end of the day, and when I opened it I commented that we were getting some free dinner with it, as it had brown splashes all over the bottom. The seller actually said, "Oh I'm selling these things for my elderly mother - that was probably her tomato soup..." - without apologising for leaving it dirty! But we bought it in any case. When I cleaned it up at home, I found out that under one large splodge of soup was, in fact, a patch of rust. So they had probably splashed the soup on there on purpose... We decided to use it anyway, and it worked perfectly well.
However, recently an electrician came to check all the cables and sockets etc in our office at WTC. He failed the microwave oven there, as it was emitting too much radiation according to his little geiger counter thingy... So I told him about our microwave story, and he immediately made all kinds of tutting noises and told me that we should be very wary of rust in a microwave - as rust can allow the microwaves to leak out... Oops.
So today Dan and I took our bargain microwave to the city dump.
Going to "the tip" as it is called here, was like driving onto the set of Wall-E - but with different sections for every imaginable kind of waste - and large signs promising that they recycle 75 % of all household waste there which is good to know. But the microwave we had to hurl into a metal cage for "Metal waste" - to be squashed down by huge steel teeth and buried. So, no microwave popcorn for now, and I'll have to remember to take the bread out of the freezer in good time - until we find another dodgy old microwave, that is.
hilarious and so true!
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