Appliance Purgatory: The Sad, Dusty Kingdom of Kitchen Gadgets You Were Absolutely Going to Use

Let's set the scene. It's a Sunday afternoon. You're standing in your kitchen, squinting into a cabinet that has somehow become a archaeological dig site of your former selves. There's the Instant Pot from 2019, still wearing its original plastic film. Behind it, a waffle maker purchased during a brunch phase that lasted exactly one weekend. And there, in the back — oh god — is that a juicer? Yes. Yes it is. You bought it in 2021 when you were convinced you were going to become a person who juices.

You are not a person who juices.

Welcome to Appliance Purgatory, a very real psychological phenomenon affecting millions of American households, where good intentions go to collect dust and occasionally tip over onto you when you're just trying to reach the colander.

The $150 Promise

Here's how it always starts: you see an ad. Or a TikTok. Or your coworker Dave will not stop talking about his air fryer like it's a member of his family. The device in question promises to revolutionize the way you cook. It will save time. It will make you healthier. It will, in some vague but compelling way, make you a better person.

So you buy it.

According to a 2023 survey by the NPD Group, air fryer penetration in US households hit over 40 percent — meaning nearly half of American homes own one. A separate, completely unscientific survey conducted by literally looking at anyone's kitchen countertop suggests that roughly 60 percent of those air fryers are currently being used as extremely expensive bread storage.

"I used mine every day for like three weeks," admits Priya, a 34-year-old marketing manager from Austin. "I made chicken wings, sweet potato fries, frozen mozzarella sticks. And then one day I just... didn't. And then it sat there. And now it's kind of like a roommate I don't talk to anymore."

Priya also owns an Instant Pot, a rice cooker, a hand-held milk frother, a quesadilla maker, and — she pauses here with the thousand-yard stare of someone who has seen too much — a dedicated avocado slicer.

The Psychology of Aspirational Cooking

Food psychologists (yes, that's a real job, and honestly good for them) have a term for this: aspirational purchasing. The idea is that when we buy a kitchen gadget, we're not really buying the object itself. We're buying a version of ourselves — the version that meal preps on Sundays, hosts dinner parties, and casually mentions that everything is "homemade" with the practiced nonchalance of someone who definitely didn't just order DoorDash.

Dr. Brian Wansink, before his research career went sideways in ways we won't get into here, spent years studying the gap between how people think they cook and how they actually cook. Spoiler: the gap is enormous and it is shaped exactly like an unused pasta maker.

The gadget industry understands this gap intimately and has built an entire economy around it. The pitch is never "buy this thing." The pitch is always "become the person who uses this thing." That's a much harder offer to refuse.

Kevin, 41, a high school teacher from Columbus, Ohio, has a dedicated shelf in his garage that he refers to, without a trace of irony, as "the shelf of good intentions." On it: a bread machine, a dehydrator, a cotton candy maker ("there was a phase"), a sous vide immersion circulator, and a George Foreman grill that he estimates is at least fifteen years old.

"I keep them because I feel like getting rid of them means admitting defeat," he says. "Like, what if I do eventually get into dehydrating things? What then?"

What then, Kevin. What then.

The Cycle Is the Product

Here's the truly diabolical part: the kitchen gadget industry doesn't just survive on first-time buyers. It thrives on the cycle. You buy the Instant Pot. You use it twice. It joins the cabinet graveyard. Two years later, a new device arrives — smarter, sleeker, with an app — and the whole process begins again with fresh enthusiasm and a credit card that has seen things.

The air fryer replaced the Instant Pot in the cultural conversation around 2020. Before that, it was the Instant Pot replacing the slow cooker. Before that, the slow cooker replacing the electric skillet. The devices change. The cycle does not.

Retail analysts at Circana noted that air fryer sales actually declined in 2023 for the first time since the category exploded — which means the market is either saturating or we're all simply waiting for the next revolutionary thing to buy and then feel guilty about not using.

(Current frontrunner for next revolutionary thing: the indoor smoker. You don't need it. You will want it. We'll check back in eighteen months.)

A Love Letter to the Gadgets We Abandoned

To be fair to the appliances themselves — and they deserve some fairness, sitting there silently in the dark — most of them are genuinely good at what they do. The spiralizer will make zucchini noodles. The panini press will make a panini. The bread machine will absolutely make bread, and the bread will be fine, and you will make it exactly twice before deciding it's "a lot of steps."

The problem was never the gadgets. The problem is that cooking — real, consistent, daily cooking — requires something no appliance can supply: the actual desire to cook on a Tuesday when you're tired and your couch is right there and your phone has the Domino's app already open.

There is no $200 device that fixes that. Believe us, we've checked. We checked with a device we bought specifically for checking and have since stored under the sink.

So What Do We Do?

Short answer: probably nothing different. We'll keep buying. The industry will keep selling. Dave will keep talking about his air fryer.

But if you're feeling a little overwhelmed by the appliance graveyard in your own kitchen, here's a radical suggestion: before you buy the next revolutionary cooking device, ask yourself one honest question. Not "could I see myself using this?" — because the answer will always be yes, because hope is eternal and zucchini noodles sound great in theory.

Ask yourself: "Do I actually cook on Tuesdays?"

If the answer is no, step away from the website. Close the tab. The Instant Pot you forgot you owned is watching. It's been watching for five years. It knows what you are.

And it still believes in you, which is honestly more than you deserve.