We're in the process of moving house this week. Something I don't exactly love at the best of times, but which is just ridiculously taxing when you're 8 months pregnant, big as a house, working and writing a novel at the same time. But we had movers, so the moving of boxes was as painless and efficient as one could wish for. Due to a temporary lapse of judgement on my part I said "yes, why not?" when they suggested starting the move at 6am tuesday morning rather than ten, which was great for the moving van finding a parking space and for finishing early but not as great for staying on good terms with the neighbours in the place we were moving out from. It was too late by the time I thought of that. But, then again, what can they do? Kick us out? Ha.
Now that the boxes are all moved, all we need to do is to get some furniture (only a sofa, dining room table, bed, cot, six or seven bookshelves, and ten or so other things, nothing much really) from ikea, assemble them (easy-peasy!), and we're officially moved in!
As for electrical goods, we needed a washing machine, a microwave oven after a Very Bad Popcorn Incident with the previous one, and a TV. The latter feels a bit spoilt as I already own a very nice, comfortably lumpy TV with inbuilt quality control (that is, you turn it on, it turns itself off, you turn it on again, it turns itself off again and so on 3-15 times depending on room temperature, as if to say "are you positive you really need to be watching TV at this particular point in time" - which, let's face it, you very rarely really need). But my partner for some reason felt like this was a bit of a nuisance rather than an advantage, so I succumbed and we decided to get one of them fancy new flatscreens that don't take up a whole room to themselves either.
And this is where it gets efficent: due to being tired and pressed for time plus getting a little lost on the way there, we only arrived at the electrical goods store at 19.54 this evening. It closes at 20.00. In those six minutes, we purchased a washing machine, TV and a microwave oven. That's two minutes per purchase. One could argue that it doesn't bode well for the quality control that I haven't even seen the microwave oven, but only said to the helpful clerk that "and lastly, I'll take the cheapest microwave oven you have", but really. Why spend time poring over a decision that you don't really care about? If the TV will show soccer matches, John will be happy. If the micro nukes my oatmeal porridge and pops my popcorn, I don't much care what extra special pizza functions it can oven. And as long as my socks get clean, a washing machine is pretty much a washing machine to me.
I notice a pattern here, the two times in my life I have purchased a vacuum cleaner I have invariably bought the cheapest one available and left the shop within five minutes of entering. It works for me.
Ironically, I can spend hours and hours in almost any bookstore deciding which 10 euro book to buy, and then beat myself up for a long time if I didn't buy the one I should have bought. I suppose it's a matter of choosing one's battles.