It's Not a Woman Thing...
...Take it from someone with serious time in the housewares and kitchen design biz, men are just as crazy and dumb when it comes to white goods and housekeeping, and probably more so. I have a partner who has pet theories about the workings of every appliance we own- not that he ever, by any least chance, does any actual cleaning, maintenance, or care of anything whatever. He gets angry at "that crappy dishwasher" because it won't clean bowls he's stacked in the upper rack- on top of other bowls. He complains that the design of the reefer is poor because "those glass shelves are always sticky"- never suspecting that they wouldn't be sticky if he didn't let milk run down the side of the jug without wiping it. He tells me that I vacuum "too often" and that I'm "wearing out the carpet". Letting it go unvacuumed and uncleaned for five years before I moved in here was soooooooo good for it, yeah, uh-huh (only took me three months to whip it back into shape).
He complained my washer "left soap in the clothes" (using twice the detergent the label calls for mighta had something to do with that, ya think?) and cranked the timer mercilessly with the washer running to create extra rinses, eventually killing that machine. I finally had to tell him that I- and the replacement washer- would be leaving if he so much as went into the laundry room again.
The kitchenwares store I worked for? You would not believe the things I saw. $125 saute pans burnt and their bottoms warped round- on the first use. TOL Braun coffeemakers people tried to return because they "just stopped working" (not in warranty, and never once cleaned of mineral desposits). People asking us for an address for Cuisinarts because they wanted to sue the company for an accident caused by a processor part they'd "repaired" with SuperGlue. Bakelite handles incinerated off LeCreuset pot lids by a trip through a self-cleaning oven ("Well, my sister cleans her cast iron that way all the time!") Martha Stewart cookbooks returned with grease-stained pages after someone "bought" it to use the party recipes. Calphalon ruined by being run through the dishwasher, after we had given the customer an additional caution at time of purchase, in addition to the manufacturer's instruction sheet.
$85 Henckels, Sabatier, and Forschner knives "sharpened" using the grinding wheel on the back of an electric can opener. Or the same knives returned as "no good" because the tip was broken trying to open a paint can with it. Expensive French tinned bakeware rusted in the dishwasher, in spite of caution and instruction. Pot racks collapsing after three pots had been put on them- because they'd been put up on a Sheetrock ceiling with molly bolts. Food processor bowls stained blue because someone had tried to reconstitute dried-up eyeshadow using the processor and hot water (Gawd, just go buy some more damn Maybelline!)
Trust me, crazy and stupid cut across all sexes, orientations, classes, ethnicities, age groups, and income lines. I have seen it all.
