- A Canadian mother was preparing to part with some of her beloved kitchen appliances.
- Lorelei Bachmann told People magazine that the now-discontinued GE Spacemaker CD/FM/AM player was “the soundtrack to our lives” for more than 20 years.
- Lorelai was totally shocked when her son surprised her with a like-new replacement, an exact replica of the one he'd first given her in 2001.
One mum had no idea how important some of her kitchen appliances were to her until she had to get rid of them.
Lorelei Bachman, a mother of five, had a GE Spacemaker CD/FM/AM player sitting under her microwave in her kitchen for more than 20 years.
“The GE Spacemaker was a gift, given to us by family visiting from the US in 2001. We placed it under the microwave in our kitchen and it has been the background music of our lives for almost 20 years,” Lorelai told People magazine.
“When my kids were little, I would play music while I bathed them in the kitchen sink or got them out of their high chairs. I listened to the morning news on it. I played CDs at their birthday parties. It's been a part of our lives for 20 years,” she recalls.
My mother has some memorable memories of this appliance.
“I have five kids, and when they were little, they said they wanted to have a luau in our living room. So we went to the dollar store and bought hula skirts and leis, and I used a broomstick, and I put the limbo soundtrack on my SpaceMaker, and we played limbo rock, and we played the song 'Rime in the Coconut.' It just brought back so many fond memories.”
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After 20 years of family enjoyment, the unit wasn't in perfect condition, “but it still worked,” Lorelai says.
“It was discoloured, and the little bass boost button had shorted out and stopped working properly. But it still played CDs – I even played a CD on it last Christmas when the kids came home. But the radio was starting to break down – sometimes it would turn on when you pressed the button, sometimes it wouldn't. But it held up for over 20 years.”
It was during the holidays that Lorelai began to accept that her appliances were slowly breaking down.
“It was just after the new year and I was like, 'I need to take this down. It's shorted, it's discoloured and it looks ugly in the kitchen,' but I didn't say anything to my kids.”
Little did Lorelai know that her oldest son had a “total surprise” planned for her.
“My oldest son and daughter live on the West Coast, and my son called and said, 'Mom, I bought you a Christmas present, but it's still in the works, so please wait a little longer,'” she recalled.
“January, February, March went by and I didn't ask him about it. I didn't think anything of it. I didn't realise the connection. And then he came home and said, 'So, I've got a present for you. It's either going to be a huge hit or a huge flop. I don't know if you'll want it, but I think it'll make you really happy.'”
Lorelai was in tears when she opened the mint-condition GE Spacemaker. “My other kids were there and they were like, 'Oh, this is a big hit,'” she laughs.
“I said, 'How did you know? Where did you find it?' Because I've been looking online for ages. I looked on eBay, but people were asking insane amounts of money and I don't know if it even works.”
Lorelai learned that her kids had found the item while browsing thrift stores together. It had yellowed at the time but was otherwise in mint condition. Luckily, Lorelai's son knew how to restore it.
“He took it all apart and everything looked great, but he had to put it through a process called retro-brightening, which is where you mix in a little bit of hydrogen peroxide and use a UV lamp. He had to keep it under the UV lamp for a few days, and then it got rid of all the yellowing,” she explains.
“When I took it out of the box, it looked like new to me. I asked, 'Has no one ever used this?' and they told me someone had used it a little bit and just put it back in the box.”
The moment was so meaningful to Lorelai that she decided to share the story on TikTok, where the video has been viewed nearly 2 million times.
“What people don't realise is that as your kids grow up and enter adulthood, you get a lot of feedback from them about the kind of parent you were, and you have to endure that until they're a bit older and understand what it means to be a parent and do the best you can,” she says.
“It was so gratifying for me to have my two oldest kids watch it and reminisce and say, 'That meant so much to us and that would have meant so much to your mom,' that's the most rewarding thing about being a parent.”
She continued: “I think people need to remember that there's nothing shameful about not having the latest things. You can still get these little joys from old appliances, old cars, etc. It's okay to live on a budget and hold on to as many things as you can.”
Lorelai was touched to learn that many of the moms had memories of their families and the same radio.
“I was so happy that day that I just thought, 'Does anyone else remember this? I'm going to post about it,'” she said. “It went viral and I sat down that weekend and read all the comments – there were thousands of them.”
“As a mother, it really touched me because so many of the mothers, especially, had memories of that radio. A lot of them were grandparents, and one of them said, 'My grandpa raised me and he would listen to that radio all winter long when it snowed.' So many of them had memories of dancing to the radio with their kids, and it really touched me.”
She also has a perfect rebuttal to opponents who suggest a move towards more modern technology.
“I think they lost the thread. They didn't understand that the best things in life aren't things, they're memories. And I believe sometimes things jump on the bandwagon and bring back memories,” she says.
“I don't think GE realizes how much this product line has meant to people,” she added of the company.
