Kitchen appliances can be expensive to replace so it can be extremely frustrating when they appear to be on their last legs.
One mum who had owned a microwave for five years thought its time was up and she was ready to splash out on a new one, only to realise her hilarious mistake.
The mum had noticed the buttons on the machine appeared to be slowly wearing away and had finally given up – but when she inspected it further, she realised she had simply never taken the protective plastic off five years ago.
She shared a photo of the blunder on Facebook, and wrote: “For years, I thought the buttons were wearing. Turns out I never took the plastic off. On the plus side, brand-new looking microwave.”
Many people resonated with the post as it gained more than 1,500 reactions in a few hours, with one person coming forward to admit that the problem had rang a bell, and they discovered they had overlooked the same issue, Metro reports.
They wrote: “Just realised I have the exact same microwave and was experiencing the same issues with the buttons. I just went and checked and yes I hadn’t taken the plastic off either.”
A second commented to say: “I found mine after three years. I was about to get cranky at the kids because it was gross after I had wiped it over and looked like the start button was melting.”
And thankfully it appears to be a pretty common mistake, as a shopkeeper revealed that “so many” customers try to return items with the protective plastic still in place because they think the machine is faulty.