Last month, right around the time I prepare my newsletter, life intervened.
Our refrigerator died,
We bought it like 12 years ago and it decided it didn’t want to keep things cool any longer. Problem was, it made this decision known at 8:30pm on a Friday.
Not a lot of appliance stores open at that point.
We rushed out to Walmart and bought a chest freezer and a big bag of ice, and loaded it up with the meat and stuff from the rapidly-warming freezer.
Refrigerator contents were more challenging. We had one large cooler and several smaller ones, so we triaged the cold drinks and foods and saved packed them all to bursting.
Bright and early Saturday morning, we headed to one of the nearby department store-type places. (There weren’t many choices locally, and the names you’d recognize were mostly up in Indianapolis which was apparently too far for delivery.) So many choices, from dirt cheap and nearly non-functional to OMG pricing.
Side note: Do we really need our appliances talking to the Internet? Why? I use my fridge to keep eggs cold, not to watch Netflix.
After some debate, we bought a mid-range model. Two days later, it was delivered. Thankfully, between the chest freezer, the coolers, and the Walmart ice, we managed to save the majority of our food. The new freezer got to zero degrees within a couple of hours, but the fridge part would take a day or two to get to its optimal temperature.
Turns out, it didn’t.
After two days, and some research, we realized the thing was faulty (as some reviews had warned might happen.) We went back to the store and tried to swap the bad fridge for a different model altogether. Simple, right?
Nope.
Try as we might, the sales person and her manager couldn’t make it work. (Remember, we’re on Day Four of living out of coolers.) Finally, in exasperation, we returned the busted one and bought another. The store employees assured us that when the new new fridge was delivered, they take the “old” one away and, once that was received at the warehouse, we’d get the refund.
So two more days pass before the new new fridge arrives. News flash: the did not take the old fridge, nor did they deliver the new new one. Turns out the water valve connected to the water/icemaker had a broken handle, and the workmen wouldn’t touch it. It was up to me, the homeowner, to get that fixed before they could do the swap.
Two more days pass before the plumber can show up to do the work. He was good and fast.
Side note: We still don’t know who broke the valve. Was it the movers when we first moved in, and they didn’t say anything? Or was it the workmen installing the “old” fridge who didn’t say anything. Hmm…
Anyway, the following day the truck showed up again and the workmen did the swap. “Old” fridge gone, new one in its place. Most of the remaining fridge food didn’t survive.
I called the store after a week of no refund. They took my info and assured me the warehouse would call within 24 hours. When that deadline passed without any call, I contacted the store once more. Again, I was assured they would call within 24 hours. An hour later, the refund appeared on my card. I never did get a call.
And people expect me to write while this is happening?
