You got to know when to hold 'em...

...know when to fold 'em
know when to walk away
and know when to run...
-Kenny Rogers "The Gambler"

So, that's the premise here in this post. That stands for more than just poker or rummy or whatever game you're playing. This also applies to appliances and other things around the house. When something gets a hole or messes up, we have to determine if we can repair it, have it repaired, re-purpose it or send it on to the garbage. And there is a difference in repairing something yourself or sending it out for repair. There is a financial difference and paying for someone else' expertise. A few days ago, my washing machine exploded and water poured from it. And since I'm one of those that does laundry on one day I had piles in the floor where I was sorting the clothes. Needless to say, all these clothes got soaking wet while we were trying to shut down the water to the washing machine. It hadn't been turned in so long, it was quite stuck. We were stuck with the idea of possibly having to replace the washing machine. So since it was messed up, and after the initial stressful moment, we could evaluate the situation better. No one in my family has experience fixing plumbing or washing machines. Especially those that are post-80s models. We weren't comfortable taking the body off of the machine and we couldn't get the back to come off easily. So we called a repair company to ascertain if it would be cheaper to fix or if we should just buy a new one. Thankfully, this is an old enough model that we don't have motherboards and thousands of bells and whistles to fix. It was a simple valve that broke in two. Which since the cold water valve is the one that broke, but is attached to the hot water valve, they have to replace both. Overall it is still much more than I like spending, however, it's MUCH cheaper than the cost of a new one. And finding a new one that doesn't have a motherboard is pretty hard to find.

Found out something interesting from the repair man. His washer died last night and he has one of the top of the line fancy washing machines. He said he was buying a new one instead of fixing it because it was going to cost more to repair than to replace. Sad to me. But it confirmed my views on simplicity is truly better.  And sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and pay for the repair or the replacement.