Single moms have too few choices? Bullshit!

Last week my dishwasher stopped working. Yesterday a $99 visit from the Whirlpool people confirmed that the motor died. A repair would cost $327 — the price of a low-end new dishwasher.

“What would you do? Get it fixed or just buy a new one?” I asked Bret, the repair guy who seemed like an honest dude.

“It’s a tough call,” Bret said. “I could go either way.”

Thanks for nothing, I thought.

I appreciated his frankness, but what I really wanted was a verdict. I wanted someone to make the decision for me.

One of the upsides of being a single mom is that I get things just how I want them. No arguing about whether the kids get dessert even if they don’t eat dinner (nope), how much to spend on Christmas (not that much), or whether to hang the painting from Brazil at the top of the salon-style cluster of art in the dining room or at the bottom (bottom, obviously). It’s my show, all the time. Which can be exactly the problem.

Life and parenting are all about decisions. Where do you go to go to college? What city do you live in? Which job to take? Rent or own? Who do you marry? Stay or divorce?

So when questions come up — big or small — it can be a giant help to have another level head to help make the call. Of course, if you’re in a contentious relationship, two decision-makers in the same house becomes the problem. Even worse is being in a perfectly stable relationship with someone who just doesn’t care, leaves all the deciding up to you, and you become really, really resentful.

And so yesterday the kids and I went to the local purveyor of appliances, P.C. Richards, where I faced three dozen dishwashers that all did the exact same thing but ranged in price from $159 to $3,000. Apparently you need to pay more for stainless steel inside the machine, yet the very nice salesman named Gilbert couldn’t explain why. The choices were overwhelming.

In the end Gilbert relived me of nearly $1,000 I really don’t have, including some hose I already own, a 10-year warranty and the pleasure of getting rid of that crappy Whirlpool that didn’t even last eight years. Now, less than 24 hours later I’m pretty sure that wasn’t a great decision, even if I haggled 15 percent off the sales price and wrangled some kind of rebate. But it was at the end of a very long day and maybe I was feeling a little overwhelmed and sorry for myself. Because, boo hoo, I might have to wash dishes another day, and, boo hoo, no one was there to help pick out the appliance.

So tomorrow the new dishwasher will be delivered. And I will own the decisions that lead to it’s making a home in my kitchen. Because even if there were some really savvy and reasonable guy there in the store with me, Gilbert may have upsold the two of us the same spendy machine.

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