It started with the late-night sessions on the internet. My wife would wake up at two in the morning and stumble into the study where she would find me bleary eyed in the blue glow of the computer, trading messages with Monica, who lives in a small town in Georgia, or Lisa, from Monterey, California, who, like me, was hesitant at first, but took the plunge and has no regrets. Or perhaps it would be Bill, the engineer from Tampa, Florida, a man who has tried, literally, everything.

You see, Bill, Lisa, Monica and myself all shared a common obsession: appliances. It all started innocently enough. One day, my wife and I decided it was time to get a dishwasher.

Appliance stores are beautiful—brightly lit palaces of domestic improvement, filled with immaculate stoves, gargantuan vent hoods and stately new fridges unencumbered by the stink of leftovers. When we walked in for the first time, we wandered around in a kind of daze, running our fingers over the smooth, cool surfaces, amazed to learn that fridges can cost as much as $10,000. After a time—five minutes? An hour?—we found ourselves in the dishwasher section and, experts that we were, opened some doors and pushed a few buttons. The salesman sauntered over and hovered as I examined the cutlery basket on a dishwasher that wasn’t unlike the kind my mother had been using for decades. “What’s this dishwasher like?” I asked.

“There’s nothing wrong with this dishwasher,” he answered. “It’ll get your dishes clean.” Fine, I thought. That’s the point of a dishwasher, hence the name. “So why is it,” I asked the salesman, “that people would pay $2,000 more for a European dishwasher?”

“Because they’re incredibly quiet and they do an excellent job. People who don’t like listening to the dishwasher as they watch TV tend to like these a lot.” He walked over to a Euro dishwasher, peeled open its gorgeous stainless-steel door and said, “The first thing you’ll notice is that the interior is stainless steel.”

“Which looks better,” I pointed out, zeroing in on the superficial.

“Not only does it look better, steel retains more heat than plastic.” Euro dishwashers, he explained, are all about heat. They heat the water to an absurdly high temperature and subject the dishes inside to a relentless spray that dissolves all baked-on crud. Unlike American dishwashers, Euro dishwashers don’t need a built-in garburator, which makes them quieter. They also use less water—as low as four gallons per load compared to as much as 14 gallons for an American dishwasher—which is not only environmentally friendly, but also makes for lower water bills. Finally, despite the hot water, Euro dishwashers miraculously manage to do it all with less energy. And they look cooler.

I wanted one.

European washing machines sounded even more incredible. My mom’s washing machine—the standard top-loading American variety that every normal person seems to have—was garbage. Top loaders use obscene amounts of water and energy and do such a bad job of rinsing that your sweaters end up flecked with bits of undissolved detergent. They also have this funny tendency to ruin your clothes, the culprit being that central arm that jerks your sweaters, pants and underwear back and forth. As with hockey goons, the industry term for them is “agitators.” The agitator, I learned, was responsible for years of frayed shirt collars and battered cuffs. I considered a class-action suit against my mother.

Enter the Euro-style front loader. Sleek, compact and space-age looking, a front loader not only does a better job of washing your clothes by constantly tumbling them together instead of agitating them, it also gets them virtually dry-to-the-touch by spinning the bejeezus out of them. Whereas a top loader’s spin cycle typically maxes out at around 600 rpm, a front loader can be in excess of 1,000 rpm.

As we left the appliance store, I felt the first pangs of need. We drove home and I mentally reconfigured our cash flow, cutting the beer budget, cutting my wife’s hair budget, trying to squeeze out enough extra dollars for better appliances. By that evening, it began to take on the proportions of mania. I cornered a woman at a dinner party and asked her, “But don’t you think the philosophy of agitation is fundamentally flawed?” I asked a man there opening a bottle of wine if his dishwasher was too loud. People began to look at me as though I was strange.

It was different on the internet. People liked me. I made a lot of new friends at That Home Site, where you can find an actual discussion forum on top loaders versus front loaders. (The top-loader crowd is in denial, if you ask me.) The individuals that populate these forums are curious, endearing, obsessive and often brilliant. There is the man from Florida who owns three brand-new, expensive vacuum cleaners and is happy to discuss the merits of each. There is the man from Connecticut who imports his own laundry detergent from Germany. There is the man from New York who, at great cost, bought and shipped a super high-end washing machine from Britain called the Dyson CR01. It’s not only unavailable in North America, but the guy had to have his basement rewired to use it.

I spent not only evenings but entire days at work surfing the internet, bouncing around from dishwasher to dishwasher, washing machine to washing machine. At lunch, I would be stuck on the Miele W1986 Novotronic washing machine with 1,200-rpm spin, SoapSaver ball-valve system and hydraulic suspension. By mid-afternoon, I’d lust after AEG and Bosch dishwashers. By dinner, I’d be obsessed with the Asko W6441 washing machine, a super high-performance little number from Sweden with 1,400-rpm spin, LED display and a sanitary cycle hot enough to hard-boil an ostrich egg. Eventually, I realized I didn’t want the one best appliance. I wanted them all, my own private harem, a fleet and army rolled into one.

Appliances began to take on a life-defining importance. The American ones were like dogs, simple and enthusiastic— a friend, an equal. The European ones, with their minimalist, compact designs and their mysterious technological inner workings, broadcast: I AM BETTER THAN YOU. Standing in front of a European appliance was, frankly, belittling. But it carried a promise: By owning one, you could elevate yourself to its level. Better appliances promised to make me a better person.