Least Favorite Household Appliances

The machines that live with you and make sure you know it.

Entries
10
Category
Stuff
Updated
  1. A small boxy space heater glowing orange beside a pair of slippers, its cord running to a crowded power strip.

    10. The Space Heater

    It heats a two-foot circle around your ankles and trips the breaker if the microwave runs too. Every fall the first night smells of hot dust. You unplug it to go to the bathroom, just to be safe.

  2. A steam iron standing upright on a faded ironing board, a dress shirt draped over the end with a fresh water spot.

    09. The Iron

    Owned by everyone, used for weddings and job interviews. It takes forever to heat, spits water spots onto the exact shirt you're ironing, and buys you three days of wondering whether you left it on.

  3. A refrigerator door dispenser with ice cubes skittering across a kitchen floor at night.

    08. The Ice Maker

    It drops its cubes with a crash at 2 a.m. like someone's breaking in, then quits the one night you have guests. The door chute launches half of every scoop onto the floor, where the dog finds it.

  4. A blender mid-blend with a green smoothie splashing against a lid that is lifting off, early morning light in the window.

    07. The Blender

    Used at 7 a.m., at the volume of a small aircraft. The lid pops if you don't hold it, and you never do. Then there's the blade assembly, the hardest thing in the kitchen to clean while keeping every fingertip.

  5. An upright vacuum cleaner at the edge of a rug, its cord pulled taut to a far outlet, a single cereal ring left on the carpet.

    06. The Vacuum Cleaner

    The cord is always four feet short of the last room. It swallows a sock, chokes on a charger, and spits the same cereal piece back out every pass. Then it needs emptying, which is its own cleanup job.

  6. A chrome two-slot toaster with two charred slices popped up and a thin curl of smoke rising.

    05. The Toaster

    Two settings: still bread, and smoke. The dial is a suggestion. The crumb tray has never been emptied because nobody knows it's there. It is the reason the smoke detector gets to do its other job.

  7. An open clothes dryer door revealing a tangle of damp jeans, a lint screen beside it thick with gray fluff.

    04. The Clothes Dryer

    Ninety minutes on high and the jeans are still damp at the waistband while the T-shirts have shrunk a size. Somewhere inside is every missing sock. The lint trap fills like it's knitting a sweater of its own.

  8. A countertop microwave with its door shut and display glowing, a lone mug of coffee visible through the glass.

    03. The Microwave That Beeps Until You Open It

    It beeps when it's done. It beeps again a minute later in case you missed it. Then again. You could open it, but the coffee inside was reheated so you'd drink it, and you won't, so it will be reheated again.

  9. A dark kitchen sink drain with its rubber splash guard, a bent spoon and a lemon rind resting at the opening.

    02. The Garbage Disposal

    John Hammes invented it in 1927, and New York City banned them until 1997. The city had a point. It sounds like a woodchipper eating a spoon, smells like last week, and jams on a single lemon rind.

  10. A round white smoke detector on a dark hallway ceiling, a tiny red light blinking, a kitchen chair placed beneath it.

    01. The Smoke Detector Low-Battery Chirp

    Not the alarm, the chirp: one bleat every minute or so from a ceiling you can't reach. You stand on a chair in the dark guessing which of four detectors it is. It's always the hallway one. It's always 3 a.m.

Honorable mentions

  • A simple electric kettle on its base with a wisp of steam at the spout and a mug waiting beside it.

    The Electric Kettle

    Water, button, boil, click, off. It does one thing, does it in minutes, and turns itself off without being asked. No app, no beeping. Every other appliance on this list should be made to watch it work.

Dishonorable mentions

  • A sleek white countertop press beside a squeezed-flat plastic juice pack and a glass of green juice, two empty hand-shaped dents in the pack.

    Juicero

    Juicero · 2016

    A Wi-Fi juicer that launched at $699 to press its own proprietary juice packs. Bloomberg found the packs could be squeezed by hand with nearly the same result. The price fell to $399 and the company shut down in 2017. Your hands still work.

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