Hard to Believe:
That someone has made a business of selling the sort of mismatched pairs people used to scrimp and save to replace.
When I was a kid, it was a point of pride to have a matched pair, even if they weren't new. I remember several visits to family and friends of the family where a trip to the basement or laundry room was a highlight, because the family had just gotten rid of "those old things" and purchased a dazzling new washer and dryer that matched. This, of course, stirred envy among those who were still Getting By with mismatched appliances, and spurred them to join the Matched Pair Society as soon as they could possibly inveigle Hubby into the purchase. Not even my mother - the least fashion-conscious person imaginable - was immune, though she drew the line at a set of 1965 Kenmore 400s.
My second cousin's wife, Betty Ann, was the hands-down winner of the competition. She had a fully matched set of Turquoise Westinghouse majors (including a dishwasher, some punkins in those days) in her kitchen, and the '62 or '63 Lady Ks downstairs were also matched, in Turquoise. Given that the washer and dryer were in the basement instead of the kitchen, this was considered by my female relatives to be a level of attention to detail that was possibly a mite excessive.
When the Lady K washer proved troublesome - and it was very troublesome indeed - there was a lot of tongue-clucking from those same relatives, as in: "That's whutcha git whin yuh git above yuhseff."
Memories....
