It is Spring Break week for our law school son who is at home enjoying his rolling birthday week: dinners and drinks with his BFFs and parents on multiple nights, a sold out college basketball game with a friend who won tickets, and shopping with the parental unit’s dime.  It may not be Cancun, but it isn’t too bad.

Last week, spring breaking up was not hard to do!  Three everyday items broke in our Richmond home in the course of five days.  First up and OFF, was the mixer gear in the spoonbill shower handle for the faucet of the master bathroom.  Renovated exactly two years ago, the Delta single handle produced nothing when I got ready to step in the shower on Monday.  Nada.  Nary a drip.  One day later, a plumber replaced the shoddy part meeting my under $300 repair limit.  I am not happy with Delta.

Next up and permanently off, was the kitchen TV which was purchased after the kitchen was renovated three years ago.  Blip!  It was dead as a doornail after dinner on Wednesday night.  My parents caused my addiction to a kitchen TV when I was a youth.  I particularly loved our latest kitchen TV with its off-white, framed flat screen that blended perfectly with the wall where the Quasar microwave sat in the old kitchen before the kitchen demolition.  (Remember Crazy about Quasar?)  I was particularly worried about the lack of a kitchen TV this week with March Madness, ACC, CAA and Atlantic 10 tournaments impending — with family connections which MUST BE WATCHED.  I get sick of basketball after a while and prefer to watch the news when I cook.  The repair estimate for the dead TV exceeded my repair limit.  On Friday night, we purchased a new, better flat screen for almost half the cost of what we paid for the much lesser kitchen TV three years ago.  I suppose this is a good thing, but I still liked the old the one better.  I am a true Virginian.

Last up in the kaput item department was the coffeemaker.  It broke on Thursday night when the hinge on the top of the reservoir broke into pieces.  It was also purchased three years ago after the kitchen renovation.  I can understand this breakage more than than the shower and the TV, because the coffeemaker was a cheap, mechanical product that we used every day, twice a day.  (I guess a shower handle is used just as often;  however,  it was certainly not cheap, and it was only two years old.)  We found a new coffeemaker, an update of the same model, at Target on the clearance rack.  The box was dented so they gave us an additional 20% off.  It was nearly a gift.  Thank you, Target!

We did have one parting of the ways with an old friend last week where breaking up was hard to do.  We donated our 1994 Pontiac Bonneville to our public television station’s fundraising efforts.  This car was our go-to sedan in the mid-90s, the car in which our son learned to drive and the ambulance for our late beagle.  Before the tow truck came on Tuesday morning, we cleaned out almost $5 in loose change from the floor, cried over the last of the dog hairs that clung to the seats, and reminisced over the trips taken, soccer carpools and nearly 18 years of other wonderful memories.

Spring Break does not disappoint with its doddering and downsizing: three appliances which hardly fit the doddering definition because of their young ages but each earned it with its feeble demise, and one car which never doddered, was still driveable, and “downsized” for a good cause.  The law school son feels that he deserves the restful Spring Break even though he is not bent or broken.  Last night he said he’s “breaking bad.”