A reader sent in a question that sums up our moment in time: Is it safe to give a restaurant gift certificate for a Valentine's Day gift, given that the restaurant might not be around by the time you use it?
It's an interesting dilemma, but it's far from a new one. How many times have you gone to use a gift certificate, and there's a crater because a meteor hit the place? Exactly. ("I thought that was just me!" you say. No, happens all the time. We lose between 30 and 45 Applebee's to meteors annually.)
Why, you ask, would you give your spouse a gift certificate to Applebee's? Nothing against the place, but it's not exactly romantic, unless you met there and fell in love on that exciting night when a meteor took out the Denny's down the street and you had to wait on all the firemen. But in general, no, Valentine's Day calls for someplace special and intimate and, perhaps, French, like Pomme d'Abeille.
Anyway, I bought my wife a washer-dryer combo. "Oooh-la-la," you say, "you rake! You rogue, you scalawag! There's a lad who knows how to keep the spark alive! Nothing says romance like metal boxes devoted entirely to domestic drudgery."
Oh, settle down. It wasn't intended as a gift. It was a necessity because the old washing machine had an important part perish and became incontinent. The repairman informed me in hushed tones that the dryer — well, it's like those couples you read about who've been married 50 years, and he dies, and, you know.
She lives another 20 years, and when interviewed by the newspapers, attributes her longevity to a daily glass of whiskey? That's what will happen to the dryer?
"No, one goes, and the other goes, too," the repairman explained. "What I'm trying to tell you is that the mate of your washing machine has a weak drum mount, and after 16 years that's to be expected."
So I bought a new washer-dryer mated pair, and also told my wife that if I keeled over she should have the doc check her drum mount.
