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.
Have you ever done anything similar? Let us know in the comments.
