This past weekend I popped down to my local Best Buy store to pick something up to… but we can talk about that another day.
When I joined the checkout line, the guy in front of me was carrying a medium-sized opened box that he was obviously returning. My eye was caught by the picture and words on the box. The picture was of a small icemaking machine. The words said “26 lb Portable Icemaker.”
I was a tad surprised by this because — to my admittedly untrained eye — it appeared that the box was not large enough to hold a 26 lb bag of ice, let alone a 26 lb icemaker.
When I queried the soon-to-be-ex-machine’s owner, he informed me that the machine holds only 1.5 lb of ice at a time, but that it can produce up to 26 lb a day, all of which made much more sense.
The real reason for my interest is that the icemaker on our kitchen fridge has shuffled off this mortal coil. I had previously pondered purchasing a standalone icemaking machine, but I’d assumed they were big and cumbersome and that we’d have nowhere to store it if company came. As I now discovered, however, this little beauty — an Insignia NS-IMP26SL0 — is only around the size of a large electric toaster.

I asked my newfound friend if his machine had failed to serve in any way. He responded that it had been a present for his wife and that it worked great, exceeding his expectations. When I inquired as to why he was returning it, he winced and succinctly stated, “She says it’s the wrong color.”
We looked at each other in companiable silence for a few seconds sharing a manly moment. It turned out this poor fool had purchased a red machine, having missed the memo that gray is the official color of the decade.
To be honest, until relatively recently, I myself had not been aware that there were so many shades of gray. Suffice it to say that there’s way more than 50. Every evening whilst we were in the process of redecorating, I would return from work to find my wife (Gina the Gorgeous) bounding around flourishing handfuls of strips of paper which — to my eye — appeared to be slight variations on an essentially gray palette. “Which set do you prefer?” she would ask, holding — what she claimed to be — completely different collections in each hand.
I still wake in the middle of the night screaming inside. All I know is that our dining room is gray with a hint of heather; our study is gray with a soupcon of seafoam; our family room is gray with a… but I’m sure you get the drift.
However, we digress. I exited the queue and ambled over to the appliance section where I quickly acquired my own Insignia NS-IMP26SL0 with a silver motif that I was convinced would complement the gray with a sniff of something or other that is to be found in our kitchen.
I have to say that I’m very impressed with this little scamp, not least that I received 10 points and a gold star from the love of my life. The main reason I’m waffling on about this here is the instruction manual that accompanied the icy beast and that I found to be somewhat amusing.
In reality, this device is so simple and intuitive to operate that you could boil the instructions down to:
- Remove any bits of sticky tape holding things together (note that some are hidden inside).
- Wipe everything (inside and outside) down.
- Add water to the line that says, “Max Fill.”
- Press On/Off button.
I personally think that additional directions like “Plug the device into a power socket on your wall” are surplus to requirements. Thus, you can only imagine my surprise and delight to discover that the instructions accompanying this little scamp delve into every conceivable icemaking possibility. For example, they start by saying:
- Read these instructions.
- Follow these instructions.
- Keep these instructions.
You have to admit the creator(s) of this manual seem to be intent on covering all the bases. In fact, some may think they went a tad overboard with instructions like:
- Exercise caution and reasonable supervision when using your icemaker near children.
- Do not use any liquid than water to make ice cubes.
- Do not clean your icemaker with flammable fluids.
I’m not sure what the rational is here. Could it be that previous purchasers allowed their kids to gorge themselves on ice — or decided to determine how a cube of frozen WD40 might taste — or attempted to clean their icemaker with gasoline and opted to take a cigarette break halfway through the cleansing process?
I think I shall add this manual to my collection. How about you? Have you been presented with any instructions that have caused you to raise a quizzical eyebrow and/or display a wry grin?
It seems to me that your ice maker has the ultimate in personalization.
MAX FILL is not a level indication, but at directive customized at the new owner… eh, Max?
Ah, that would explain things 🙂
I like the fact that the instructions seemed to be written by your wife… in particular the line that stated… ”Max fill”
Now that you mention it, it does sound like my wife LOL
Many years ago, I assembled a bike for my son, following the instructions with my normal obsessive manner. I got to step 12 (actually it may have been some other step but my memory of that moment doesn’t include the step numbers – sorry about that) and it said, paraphrasing, “Before doing step 11 be sure to…”
Having said that, I wonder if I should end this sentence with “sure to…”. or maybe “sure to….” And of course, I now wonder if I should end that previous sentence with “sure to….”.
Thanks for an amusing read. I’m posting a link on my club’s social medium.
You live in the USA, the second most litigious society on Earth (Sydney, Australia, apparently, being #1. I’m fortunate enough to live in Melbourne)
So there’s you answer: PTA – Protect Thine Ass. If a child finds a way to sever a digit in the ice machine, some parent will sue. So the manual better have a warning against that eventuality.
This is great news — I’ll tell my dear old mom that I’m Big Down Under (she’ll be so proud 🙂
I used to think these type of instructions were designed to cater for the idiots that inhabit the planet, but with age I’ve concluded that people are smarter than I thought and the instructions are really designed to protect companies from opportunistic entrepreneurs who decide to sue said companies for not stating things like “ice generated will be cold and slippery” or “attempting to make vodka ice cubes could blow up your house”.
This is the first I’ve heard about problems making vodka ice cubes — thank you for saving me from myself!!!
Max, you need to discuss this issue with your brother. Makers of consumer products obviously employ a phalanx of lawyers to review and edit their user manuals.
How else could you explain these warnings:
😀
“Halloween Superman costume, ‘Caution, costume does NOT enable the wearer to fly.’” As we all discovered to our cost LOL
This reminds me of when I was about 7 years old — I cut holes in the four corners of my bed sheet — attached four lengths of rope — tied the her ends to my belt — and jumped over the bannister at the top of the stairs — fortunately the sheet caught over a wooden ball on the corner of the banister, leaving me dangling about 9″ above the floor, which is where my mom found me when she came out of the kitchen (by this time, she wan;t even surprised)