Alternative Uses

My in-laws have an alternative use for their clothes dryer which they never use because they are afraid it will cause a fire. They use their dryer to store their recyclable aluminum cans and plastic bottles. There they keep them out of sight until it is time for them to be picked up by the trash collectors.

Since they live in Florida, most of the time they do have plenty of sunshine which is equally efficient in drying clothes.

They have never embraced new technology but they do own some of it.

They have a microwave. I am sure it is never used except when we visit them. When I went to make myself a quick cup of tea by filling a cup with water and putting it in the microwave my father-in-law told me the microwave "no work."

I think he and my mother-in-law forgot how to use it. I plugged it in, touched the keypad and voila. Hot water.

Dziadzi then told me "it no have the right time."

I glanced at my watch, touched the keypad, and corrected the time.

For the rest of our stay, I used the microwave. I am sure that after I left, they unplugged it. It will lie dormant until our next visit.

That's the way it is. Some older folks just cannot adapt--or they find alternative uses that most of us would never consider. One of my mother's friends regularly used her dishwasher as a sorting facility for her mail and continued washing the dishes by hand.

My in-laws have a dishwasher, too. They turn it on when they have a lot of company--a rare event. Most of the time they wash the dishes by hand.

I suppose I should have looked inside the dishwasher to see if there was anything else inside there, but I didn't. Now it's really bothering me. I wonder what they store inside it.