Consumerism gone crazy?

I've spent most of the day out and about today, visiting my accountant, running a few errands, buying a weeks worth of groceries, and when I arrived home and began to tell my family of my days events, there seemed to be a troubling constant theme to the day....

My Kenwood Chef mixer conked out on the weekend, so I took it to the appliance repair store, only to be told by the very disinterested fellow there that he couldn't get the parts to fix it. Perhaps someone an hours drive away may be able to help, he told me, as he wrote down a (hopefully) well memorised phone number....he may be able to help, I was told....perhaps....he wasn't too sure though.

Before returning the new kettle I had bought about three weeks ago, which began to make sparking electrical "bzzzztt" noises yesterday (which was cheerfully replaced, but after only three weeks?!!) I dropped my two year old watch off to have the battery replaced. When I returned from the kettle exchange I was told they couldn't get the back off my watch, so very sorry, we can't replace the battery for you....

In this day and age of so-called "reducing waste" and "recycling" it occurred to me that I'm not having a whole lot of success having old appliances repaired, or with new appliances either, for that matter.

A week ago today, the dishwasher repair guy was here, telling me he needed to order a new part for the dishwasher, it'll be about a week, I was told. Here it is, exactly one week to the day (not that I'm counting!) and my dishwasher is still not repaired....Will he tell me he can't get the part and I will need to buy a new dishwasher? If that be the case, I'll continue hand washing the dishes, me thinks!

So today's photo is my second brand new kettle in three weeks, which I rather enjoyed playing around with in picasa and making it look a bit obscure...just like the obscure way in which we are conned into having to replace broken items rather than repairing them, in this world where recycling is promoted.....

hmm.....am I missing something?