Ironing

As I’ve mentioned before, I really hate to iron, but I’ve found something that makes it easy to do. I mean, I don’t run to go and iron something, but it’s at least tolerable now. Last week I ironed about 5-6 pairs of pants and 4 dress shirts. That’s a marathon for me! I just put on a movie I’ve been meaning to see and the time just flew by. The one thing that makes ironing tolerable for me is a good iron.

I’ve gone through a lot of irons in my day, believe it or not, and about 15 years ago I came across an iron being featured on QVC. It was called the Rowenta iron. Now some of you professionals may already know about this iron, but to me it was new. It looked so effortless! I told my husband that I thought this particular iron might motivate me to iron more. He watched the presentation and was also impressed with its ease of use. I guess he figured if I didn’t like it, he’d still have a great iron to use! I think we paid about $79.99 for that iron, but it was on flex pay so it was pretty affordable. Well I have to tell you, I’m not one of those people who believe in purchasing only name brand items and this iron was… well I’ve never paid that much for an iron. We got the iron and immediately fell in love with it. It was much heavier than irons I used before and boy did that make a difference! It just glided across the clothes and the steam burst was phenomenal! We affectionately called it Row.

About 3 years ago, Row died. I don’t know what happened. I suspect after teaching the boys how to iron they weren’t as gentle with her as I would have like. (Leaving water in it, etc…) I called my husband at work and I have to tell you I heard the heartbreak in his voice as he said, “I guess we knew it had to happen one day.” I immediately started looking up Rowenta Irons on the internet to see if we could purchase another one like it, but sadly, they were all too expensive. My particular iron was called the Advancer and the retail price was $129.99. That wouldn’t be a purchase I would make at that time. I turned to buying an iron at Wal-mart and of course I was so disappointed. I tried to buy the heaviest one they had thinking that would make the difference. It didn’t. In fact, I went through about 3 irons trying to find one that did the job Row had so easily done. Mind you, I had to get these irons because they would break down and would need repairing. It cost more to repair them than it did to buy them! I had gotten used to the best and it wasn’t to be had by me anymore. Or so I thought.

When Linen ‘N Things went out of business last year we, as usual, tried to wait until things got down to at least 75% off. Of course everything was picked over and not much of anything was left. I was helping my mom buy some towels and pillows when my husband came over and said, “Look what I found!” It was Row! I got so excited and then I saw that the cord had been chopped off. He said it was the display model and they cut the cord to discourage people from running off with it. We went back over to that area and looked to see if there were any more of them left and there weren’t any to be found. Again I was heartbroken. But my husband, the genius he is, (he is MacGyver!) said it wouldn’t be a problem. They were selling everything, shelves and all, so they would probably sell this to him also.

He went and found the manager of the place with iron in hand and said, “I’ll take this off your hand for $10.” The manager asked what he would do with it since the cord was cut and he said I’ll figure something out. After they agreed on the deal my husband told him that he’ll just replace the cord! The manager was so shocked! It’s like it never occurred to him that you could do that! When he came to his senses, he asked if there was another one back there and there wasn’t. Well, there was another Row but the one we had was the top of the line. He ran back there and got another model and told my husband he would pay him to fix the cord on that one! DH just told him what to do to replace the cord. On the way home we went to Lowe’s and bought a cord for about $3.99 and replaced it in about 20 minutes. (Well he did!)

So now I have an iron worth $130.00 (and so worth it!) for which I paid about $14.50. Is that sweet or what?! I have to say, since that time I've look a little bit more forward to ironing. It's still not one of my favorite tasks, but with the right tools and especially at the right price, it's makes all in a day's ironing a breeze!

Until next time,
It's just me!