Spending

We have a small food processor -- a Kitchen Aid KFP350. It'll hold five cups, which is enough for about 90% of the things we want to do. Yesterday, while I was mixing the dough for the biscuits (turned out I could have just done it in the mixer, I think, or even by hand), I heard a little clink sound, and the machine wouldn't turn on. The little tab on the bowl that pushes down the interlock when the bowl's cover is on had snapped off. I was able to make the machine work by just holding down the interlock with my finger. Afterwards, I did a little bit of looking for replacement parts.

Well, first off, it looks like they don't make that thing any more. Hardly a surprise; we tend to keep things for a while. When something breaks, we try to fix it rather than get a new one. I checked out some sites that offered parts for it, and was surprised to find that the bowl was twenty dollars -- and a similar new model was only sixty! My wife was willing to spend that, but I wasn't. Twenty dollars, just to get a little bitty piece of plastic? (And how come its plastic, anyway -- why wasn't that reinforced?) So this morning, I got out the superglue (always dangerous, with me), and carefully glued the piece on, taping it in place. We'll see this afternoon if it holds up.

While I was looking, I glanced at some newer ones. Gee, I thought, that seven cup one for $110 is neat -- and the twelve cup one, for $200, that would be even better. This, for a family that normally needs no more than 5 cups? And isn't willing to spend $20 to fix it?

Sometimes, my economic motivations don't make sense to me!