I flew to Canada with a feeling of déjà vu, an open mind, a long September to-do list for and French delicacies, including four glass jars of jam to make life sweeter. I was obviously taking a big leap of faith on everything, especially the jam. I mean, luggage isn’t exactly handled with care in airports.

The glass jars could have (and should have) broken but they made it to Ottawa in perfect condition, ready to be spread on crêpes, also in my luggage.

However, everything else started breaking shortly after.

If you’ve been wondering why I didn’t blog much in September, it’s because I was busy troubleshooting, fixing, solving, and replacing.

I’m losing my mind. It’s not just about spending money on new stuff, it’s the gruelling process of getting things done.

It all started with the dryer. It handled our back-in-Canada laundry just fine for a few days until one night when, after adding another twenty minutes to dry a load that should have been dry already, I noticed it was running much quieter than usual.

I stood there, bewildered, and opened the door.

The laundry was a bit warmer than a few seconds ago, but undisturbed. And as anyone who has ever operated a dryer knows, when you open the door mid-cycle, it spits out socks and undies—this is your punishment as a human who killed the tumbling fun.

“I think the dryer isn’t spinning,” I announced in the living room.

“Oh, that’s why I heard a loud ‘BANG!’ coming from the basement”, Mark said.

“When?”

“Like… I don’t know… an hour ago?”

We tried everything and achieved nothing because we had no idea how to fix a dryer. We opened and closed the door, we restarted the cycle, we even unplugged it and plugged it back in, just like IT tech support invariably advises.

The magic fix for computers and modems doesn’t work for dryers. It still wasn’t spinning.

The next day, we watched a few YouTube videos and pretended we were repair experts.

“I’m sure it’s the belt,” I claimed.

Honestly, it probably was. But after unscrewing 24 screws, we said “screw it”—the back panel was welded and none of the other side panels were giving us access to whatever is inside a dryer.

“We need a new dryer.”

In my alternate life, I live in a tropical country and I hang laundry on the balcony just like everybody else. But unfortunately, I live in Ottawa, suburbia, where nobody hangs laundry outside because it’s considered an eyesore and the weather doesn’t exactly dry clothes most of the year. I’m not joking about the eyesore—North Americans are totally okay with hanging flags everywhere but totally not okay with laundry because it’s a poor people thing. There are plenty of outdoor clothesline bans but Ontario lifted the local one in 2008, phew.

We went to look for a new dryer. I did know we wouldn’t drive home with it. A few trips to IKEA with baby Mark taught me that it’s best to drive one of these Suburban Assault Vehicles because you can’t fit anything but humans in a small Toyota. But I thought the process would be easier—choose, pay, have the dryer delivered a day or two later.

Feng had a dryer in mind at Home Depot. As usual, I started to read the fine print.

“Wait, what? Delivery available from November 30?”

“What the hell? It would be quicker to bring it back from China?”

“Sure, let’s do that. Please, give me a mission and put me on a plane to anywhere. No? Never mind. How about this one?”

“October 17.”

“Today is September 9. No way.”

Suddenly, the brand, size, capacity and what the hell, the price, became irrelevant. I almost shouted “This one!” when I saw something available right away but it was a toaster and we already have a toaster, plus toasters don’t dry clothes very well. Maybe twenty toasters under an old-fashioned drying rack?

“September 18.”

“We can manage,” I said, checking the weather on my phone because, in Canada, no decision shall be made without checking the weather forecast first.

The washer wasn’t yet another case of planned obsolescence. It had a long, mostly happy life, although he probably resented the sudden extra workload when Mark was a baby and half of parenting was doing laundry. It was 30 years old. It’s a respectable age for a dryer to die. Yes, I know, the new one won’t last as long.

Everybody is complaining about Made-in-China “crap” but my Made-in-China Bought-in-China crap is just fine. The problem is that Made in China products are bought at the lowest possible price by Western companies but sold with high margins.

This is how I started another battle with a small company you may have heard of—Google.

I bought myself the Fitbit Charge 6 in April. On September 13, the display just gave me a white screen. I had another Fitbit replaced a few years ago and it had been a smooth process, so I wasn’t worried when I contacted customer service. But now, Google is the new boss.

Enter AI bots, useless and endless customer service chats with humans—or not. Eventually, I was told to send back the product and to wait for a decision to be made. A week later, I received the watch part of the Fitbit but not the rest.

“I sent back the entire box as instructed,” I typed once again in the chat window. “You sent me the screen but not the charger, wristband, etc.”

We’ve been going round and round for a while now. It’s fucking Google. Just send me a new Fitbit, already!

It’s the same everywhere. AI bots and underpaid customer service employees you really can’t blame, but how can issues get solved?

I could also tell you about my bank’s new “improved” app that suddenly doesn’t display the basic total withdrawals and deposits, so I have to add everything manually. Or maybe the Canada Revenue Agency’s convoluted way to access your own account—how many authentication factors do you need, really?

But I’m tired. I’m 41! I should be able to keep up with technology and the world in general! I just want things to work and I want to deal with real humans who can actually help instead of reading a script.

Well, at least I had a story to tell, I suppose.