Today was an all-day shopping spree. We did it for my grandmother.

Some background: when we were married 29 years ago, my grandmother in her wisdom gave us the money to buy a washer and dryer. These were the first of the appliances that have saved our marriage. Without them, we would have had to do the whole laundromat thing, and I don’t think either of our temperaments would have permitted our relationship to survive the constant planning of when we could go, finding quarters, lugging laundry to and fro, and then the awful tedium and Darwinian atmosphere of the laundromat!

As I said, these were the first. Others have included a refrigerator with an icemaker, a dishwasher, a microwave, a new microwave, a VCR, an even newer microwave/convection oven combo. When one sublimates one’s agressions and frustrations into innocent machines, it’s best to have them aplenty, and in working order.

My grandmother died last year, age 99, and not a sentient molecule in her head, bless her. Recently my mother, who was her executor, finally cleared everything out of the estate. My share of the inheritance was enough to start thinking about replacing some appliances.

Our refrigerator’s icemaker finally gave up the ghost a few months ago. Personally, I like the ice trays and the cubes they make, but others in the house do not. I think inertia could have kept us from moving on this one, but the interior shell in the freezer is cracked. That can’t be good, can it?

The oven, on the other hand, is just not working. Ginny has complained for years that it won’t bake like it’s supposed to, but I have always poohpoohed that. It baked my stuff just fine. But again, a couple of months ago, it really just stopped altogether. It will put out heat, but it doesn’t put out the right amount of heat. I’ve been using it as a platewarmer and doing all my baking in the microwave/convection oven.

The tipping point for the oven, like the refrigerator’s cracked case, was the fact that recently while I’ve been warming plates, the oven will occasionally go “WHOOMPH” and the door will burp open. I’m thinking this is probably not a good thing.

So, in honor of my grandmother, we set out to find replacements. Mirabile dictu, we found both at Sears, first stop of the day. Great deal on the refrigerator, although I’m still unconvinced that I will like the bottom freezer, and it makes those damnable half-moon ice chunks. We splurged on the stove, springing for a gas range (which is my preference for cooking, and since I do the cooking, my preference is the standard) and a convection oven. Both will be delivered and installed next Friday. My one day off before having to pack and head to Valdosta.

Rather than savor our triumph, however, we pressed on in search of a sofa and some porch furniture. We found neither. But in looking for a nonexistent patio furniture store in Fayetteville, we somehow ended up with an elliptical exercise machine in the back of my van. Ginny likes these machines, and she is convinced that if we have one in our basement, then I will be more likely to exercise and avoid dropping dead before 60, as is the wont of the men in my family.

That was it. That was all the shopping I could stand, so home we came. Fixed a nice supper, and then we watched Borat, an appalling work of genius.