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Annals of the Floored & Flabbergasted

Fridge Fiasco Update….

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Ohhhkayyyyy…. It keeps getting better. :-D, not to say 😮

The refrigerator repairman, who appeared to measure his IQ in the negative numbers, accomplished exactly nothing. The delinquent refrigerator continued to roar and bang and squeal and carry on. The racket it emanates is SO loud, Ruby and I have no chance of getting to sleep unless we barricade ourselves in the back bedroom behind a closed door.

I call around and rassle around and get essentially nowhere, which is about where I expected to get.

Eventually American Express, which has thrown itself into the fray, calls to announce that they’ve canceled the charge. Unclear to me whether this has already happened, so I call to confirm. It appears that probably they have done so. Meanwhile, I still have the refrigerator, which keeps me awake all night with its lovely rattling, whining, roaring serenade.

This afternoon I applied my li’l-ole-lady handyperson skills to the damn thing and discovered that…lo! It was out of level. The jerk that delivered it installed it cattywampus. Fooled around and fiddled around…got it pretty well on the level, but there’s a limit to what a little old lady with no tools can accomplish.

It now buzzes for a half-minute or so when it cycles on, and then runs fairly quietly. Giving it a whap upside its mechanical head shuts it up for quite a while.

So where are we now? (Are we out of the Twilight Zone yet???)

***

9:05 a.m. Found a receipt saying I canceled purchase of the HD fridge I was admiring. Called American Express. They said that yes, we DID cancel it. The AMEX rep says I have an $800 credit from the bastards at B&B Appliances. This could be applied to a new refrigerator’s purchase.

1:05 p.m.: The machine is now running almost silently! The motor/fan sound is audible, but not much more so than a normal refrigerator’s. Why???

Is it possible that whapping it a couple of times might have shaken something loose or jiggled something into place so that it runs OK now?

At this point, I was just about to launch on my way up to Home Depot to buy another unit. But….

1:45 p.m.: When in doubt, don’t. Fridge was off; just came back on. It’s rattling, but more quietly than before.

Still…as I sit my butt down to write this note (I figure I’d better take pretty close notes on what’s happening), the damn thing continues to buzz/rattle: again, more quietly than before. It seems to quiet a little as it runs, and now is operating like a normal fridge: just the serenade of a fan, no sound of grinding motor.

At 1:53 p.m., the thing is running as quietly as it gets: motor and fan noise audible, but no rattling or roaring.

* I can’t hear it in the bedroom.

* It seems pretty loud here in the family room/dining room/kitchen, but it’s not audible in the back of the house. If you were like most Americans and had a TV or stereo babbling away all the time, you’d hardly notice it.

What to do???

This runaround has been quite the little nightmare. There’s really no excuse for a retailer to sell a total piece of junk, at least not without explaining to the mark what to expect: If I’d been told that the machine would make a lot of noise for the first week or so of operation, I would not have gotten myself into this uproar.

On the other hand…

  1. If it is now working normally, I can’t really justify not paying for the damn thing, no matter how much of a runaround the incompetents at B&B gave me.
  2. If this intermittent peace is maybe the way it’s supposed to work but it in fact has something wrong with it that causes it to rattle and run noisy off and on, I should get my money back so I can buy a competent machine at HD.
  3. Its apparently “normal” fan noise is pretty loud.
  4. My level says the thing is only very slightly out of level, and so it’s hard to believe that’s the issue. The floor itself measures as perfectly dead level.

If I go back and do battle with B&B, even with AMEX behind me, it’s going to be another monumental, headachey hassle. If the machine will work quietly enough not to be heard in the back of the house (we shall see tonight!!), then the path of least resistance will be to just let it go.

…hmmmm…ohhhkayyyyy…..

What to do about the money AMEX is withholding from B&B?

My sense is to wait and see what they do. This cannot be the first such episode that’s ever occurred in the history of American consumerism. American Express will know how to proceed and when to proceed. Probably the best course of action is to wait for direction from AMEX, and if and when they get in touch, do as they advise. If they say nothing, B&B says nothing, and I say nothing, then maybe I should just hang onto the refrigerator, which at that point I may glom for free.

That seems unethical, but the weeks-long hoopla and hassle I’ve been through – which could have been ameliorated if they had told me what to expect or had just responded to me when I complained – has consumed a great deal of my $60/hour time and caused a great deal of worry and anxiety. Maybe B&B deserves to pay me for the uproar their incompetence has caused.

And speaking of unethical, as I wrestle with the thing and fiddle with the thing and adjust the thing, I find two places where it has some small but distinct dents. Whaddaya bet its problem is that it’s been beaten about down at B&B’s shop, or in transit to the Funny Farm? Matter of fact, I see a place under the front end where they’ve glued a thin piece of Styrofoam, apparently trying to fix some kind of damage or defect. Like…what, pray tell?

I find it hard to believe that all refrigerators make a noise like a wrecking yard when they’re new. This is NOT the first refrigerator I’ve bought – we got one in the Encanto house, and I believe we bought another one at the North Central house. I would remember a circus like this! Therefore it’s reasonable to think there’s an issue here that should have been addressed, either by warning me at the outset or by responding competently to my complaints.

2:17 p.m. Fridge switched on with loud buzzing; buzz shut off in less than a minute – possibly less than half a minute. It’s now running not quietly but not raucously.

I go over and mess with the freezer.. This makes the noise louder. I whap it on the side (away from the wall: its right side) and that cuts the volume of the noise. It still rattles, but more softly.

Push against the machine’s right side, giving it two or four shoves. The noise has now completely stopped except for the sound of the fan running!

Suspect the thing is rattling/buzzing because it or some component inside it is slightly out of level. That’s why there’s some sort of dap and stuff on the bottom of the cabinet: they must have tried to level it so they could unload it on an unsuspecting customer.

I’m going to ask AMEX to return my payment because I believe B&B ripped me off: they knew they were foisting a damaged or substandard product on me. This is evidenced by the obvious jury-rigged repair job at the unit’s base.

What to do next?
Persist with trying to get my money back via AMEX, since it appears likely – even evident – that B&B knew the unit was not running up to par. Keep it for about a year, if possible; then go to Costco or Lowe’s to replace it with a new refrigerator.

Moral of the story: NEVER buy local!!!!  Always buy from nationally known, nationally respected vendors.

Ahhh, The Good Ole Days….

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My daddy’s dream car…

I have a friend who likes to send out emails of the forwarded-forwarded-forwarded variety. Most of them are sappy…but this one takes the cake. “No idea who put this together,” sez he, “but it is Fantastic!” It really set me off, I’m afraid:

1950’s version of an E-Mail

Long ago and far away, in a land that time forgot,
Before the days of Dylan , or the dawn of Camelot.

There lived a race of innocents, and they were you and me,

For Ike was in the White House in that land where we were born,
Where navels were for oranges, and Peyton Place was porn.

We longed for love and romance, and waited for our Prince,
Eddie Fisher married Liz, and no one’s seen him since.

We danced to ‘Little Darlin,’ and sang to ‘Stagger Lee’
And cried for Buddy Holly in the Land That Made Me, Me.

Only girls wore earrings then, and 3 was one too many,
And only boys wore flat-top cuts, except for Jean McKinney.

And Oprah couldn’t talk yet, in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We had our share of heroes, we never thought they’d go,
At least not Bobby Darin, or Marilyn Monroe.
For youth was still eternal, and life was yet to be,
And Elvis was forever in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We’d never seen the rock band that was Grateful to be Dead,
And Airplanes weren’t named Jefferson , and Zeppelins were not Led.

And Beatles lived in gardens then, and Monkees lived in trees,
Madonna was Mary in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We’d never heard of microwaves, or telephones in cars,
And babies might be bottle-fed, but they were not grown in jars.

And pumping iron got wrinkles out, and ‘gay’ meant fancy-free,
And dorms were never co-Ed in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We hadn’t seen enough of jets to talk about the lag,
And microchips were what was left at the bottom of the bag.

And hardware was a box of nails, and bytes came from a flea,
And rocket ships were fiction in the Land That Made Me, Me.

T-Birds came with portholes, and side shows came with freaks,
And bathing suits came big enough to cover both your cheeks.

And Coke came just in bottles, and skirts below the knee,
And Castro came to power near the Land That Made Me, Me.

We had no Crest with Fluoride, we had no Hill Street Blues,
We had no patterned pantyhose or Lipton herbal tea
Or prime-time ads for those dysfunctions in the Land That Made Me, Me.

There were no golden arches, no Perrier to chill,
And fish were not called Wanda, and cats were not called Bill

And middle-aged was 35 and old was forty-three,

And ancient were our parents in the Land That Made Me, Me.

But all things have a season, or so we’ve heard them say,
And now instead of Maybelline we swear by Retin-A.
They send us invitations to join AARP,
We’ve come a long way, baby, from the Land That Made Me, Me.

So now we face a brave new world in slightly larger jeans,
And wonder why they’re using smaller print in magazines.
And we tell our children’s children of the way it used to be,
Long ago and far away in the Land That Made Me, Me.

If you didn’t grow up in the fifties,
You missed the greatest time in history,
Hope you enjoyed this read as much as I did.
If So, PLEASE FORWARD this note to
someone who will appreciate these memories…

Hm. Actually the 1950s were pretty dreadful, as I recall.

  • Constant threat of nuclear warfare; weekly air-raid drills, school evacuation plans based on the likelihood that we would never see our parents again — whee! what fun!
  • Hatred of anyone whose skin was a different color from yours or who spoke a different language from yours.
  • Mediocrity: celebrated as the norm.
  • No real job opportunities for women. College women couldn’t major in the sciences or business management; if they contrived to weasel into a program, they couldn’t get a job with their degree. All girls were forced to take a year of home ec in K-12, and nevvermind if you needed geometry, algebra 2,, or trig to get into a decent university.  Why would anyone want to spend money sending a girl to university anyway, since all she was going to do is spawn and raise children?
  • Ohhh what fun it was. Mediocrity celebrated. Air raid shelters well stocked. A big, bloated car that was unsafe at any speed. Smog so thick you couldn’t see across your high-school campus. My father kept a crate of canned water in the back of the car, just in case we managed to escape down the Peninsula and get outside the blast zone before the bombs fell.

If anything had happened to him, my mother and I would have gone hungry until she could land another man — as a female, she couldn’t get a job that would support us and put food on our table.

Uh huh. Them’s were the good ole days…

Wanted: Indiana Jones for Senior Consumers

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One of the many joys (yes: that’s /s/) of aging is the attitude of Americans toward the elderly. This ranges from the nasty to the predatory: overall, Americans regard their older compatriots as idiots, negligible fools, and nuisances. One aspect of this is said to be that merchandisers all across the board target the elderly (when they notice us at all) for scams and rip-offs.

It’s true: they can and do pull the wool over your eyes more often and more easily, because older people tend to be more trusting. And if experience serves…that opinion appears to be true. I do not remember vendors, back in the day of my Misspent Youth, trying to cheat me, people trying to feed me ridiculous and obvious lines of bull, salespeople trying to overcharge me as a routine matter…and on and on.

The business with the junk refrigerator is a case in point. Nothing more has been heard from AMEX about that fiasco — one of the several “fun” chores on the slate for today is to call American Express and rattle their cage about that. Meanwhile, I need to buy another refrigerator — one that doesn’t keep me awake all night rattling and roaring…which will set me back another $1400.

It useta be… that when I wanted something, I would do the research on-line and in consumer publications; then go into a store and say I want this and this and this, and I do NOT want that and that and that. The sales person would appear to understand plain English, and s/he would show me this and this and this and NOT show me that and that and that.

Now that I’m Old, though…EXACTLY the opposite happens. Sales people seem to assume that I’m naive, stupid, and just plug-incompetent.

When, O dear merchandiser, when you insist on hustling me to buy something that is not what I asked for, and when I can see that what I asked for is right there on the floor, then I perceive that you’re trying to rip me off. (Yes: upselling me when I know exactly what I want IS a form of rip-off, thankyouverymuch.) And, my friends…that perception happens more and more often with every passing month of age. How can I count the ways that I’m sick & tired of nitwits trying to rip me off when they decide that because I’m old, I must be stupid?

At this point…seriously: I would be willing to pay a fee to someone who would go to the vendors in town to do the shopping I need to have done — I would PAY YOU to order a refrigerator for me. I would PAY YOU to buy me a new microwave. I would PAY YOU to take my car to the dealership, get it serviced, and repel all offers of unnecessary work. I would PAY YOU to get the plumbing fixed. Because even if I paid you for those things, I would save money…and also escape a great deal of aggravation and frustration.

Stormy Weather y-Cumin In…

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Looks like we’re going to get the leading fringe of that big California storm. Kind of a gray day now: high clouds coating the normally blue skies.

La Maya and La Bethulia came flying into town, leaving their retirement palace (a nice double-wide) behind in Sta Cruz. My escaped church friend Joan and her daughters, far as I can tell, are about in the thick of it, there in the middle of California’s inland valley. Yipes! Actually, in these parts it’s supposed to be overcast but calm until the middle of next week. Then: 75% chance of rain.

We’ve already had a little rain, but nothing much out of the ordinary. One night: enough to fill the pool almost to the scuppers. Otherwise: pretty low-key.

I could condescend to pick up the frost covers, since it never freezes here under an overcast and rainy sky. In fact, we’re in the 70s now. Kinda doubt temps will drop 40 degrees tonight.

On the other hand…if in fact it gets much chillier tomorrow night and the next (never believe Phoenix forecasts that predict temps in the mid-to low 40s: depending on where you are in the Valley, that can easily translate to the 30s), I’ll just have to lay all those covers out again. Probably better to wait until the Season’s Drama blows over.

***

And now we see that what has transpired here weather-wise is…nothin’ much. A whole day of high clouds. No rain, no wind — at least in these parts. Apparently the water falling out of the sky is confined to California so far. As you see on the news, that is quite the spectacular drama: floods, sinkholes.. WHAT an unholy mess.

Mighty glad I don’t live over there anymore! 😮

 

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

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Hope you all have a happy holiday!

Things are bustling right along here in the ‘Hood, very Christmasy. This quasi-historic neighborhood has filled up with young and ambitious new neighbors, full of civic pride and shenanigans. The neighborhood association is now run by young folks… This year they took it into their lively collective mind to promote displays of luminarias all up and down the streets.

The luminaria, in case you haven’t heard of it in your part of the country, is a Mexican tradition. You take paper bags and place candles in them, sunk in a bit of sand on the bottom of the bag, and then line your sidewalks with them.

They’re very pretty. And distinctively Southwestern. This year many of the neighbors have set them out along the sidewalks and drivewauys.

I don’t do it myself, because I think they’re a fire hazard. As Ruby and I made our mile-long perambulation this evening, I counted six of them that were totally, unmistakable fire risks: parked under shrubs and low-hanging tree branches. Personally. the chance of fire is more than I want to take on.

Plus it’s quite a project to fill dozens of paper bags with sand, park candles in them, and set them all out around your yard and driveway. To say nothing of having to pick them all up tomorrow morning! 😀

Next, as the night ambles on we’ll have the fireworks racket from the ethnic neighborhood to the north of us. This also is a popular tradition…and since fireworks are now sold legally here, we get banged and boomed all night for every possible occasion. Christmas, alas, is now one of the occasions. And New Year’s. And the Fourth of July. And Cinco de Mayo. And…whoever’s birthday it is…on and on and on. Some people’s dogs are very scared by the racket — and if they get out of your yard are likely to be GONE, never to return. Probably to get run over, in their panic, on Conduit of Blight or Gangbanger’s Way.

Ruby lives in the house — I let her out to do Her Thing, of course, but most of the time she loafs inside. Even then, she’s still scared of the noise. Takes up residence under the toilet, where she hides until such time as I go to bed, haul her out, and put her on the blankets with me.

Tomorrow it’s over to M’hijito’s house, where he intends to put on one of his feasts. That kid can cook!

As can a couple of his friends. When they were younger fellas, they seriously contemplated starting a catering business, cooking up fancy meals for customers. That never came to pass (they all went off to college and got — urk! — jobs, if you can imagine), but nevertheless around the holidays they still entertain the families.

Weather here remains steady: cool (in the crisp 60s, Hevvin help us!), classic Arizona climate. It looks like all He!! has broken loose across the country: “hundreds of thousands” without power as snow and storms swirl around them. Rarely is one really, really glad to live in Arizona. But this IS one of those times.

My mother spent part of her childhood in upstate New York, on what she described as a “dirt farm” owned by her paternal grandparents. They didn’t have the proverbial nickel or a dime, evidently: anything they ate, they had to raise themselves, and the house had no inside bathrooms — just an outhouse. One winter they had a monumental snowstorm, much like the one we’re seeing now. She said so much snow piled up, they couldn’t get out the doors at all: they had to climb out a second-story window. Her grandfather had to shovel a tunnel out front, so they could use the front door at all.

Sounds like what they have now is very much like that. Only at least they have vehicles that can navigate snow. And central heating (the only heat in her grandparents’ house was from an iron stove). Just imagine what it must have been like to live in those days!

Jeez. It’s only quarter to seven, and the nitwits are already out there banging away with their firecrackers. Why are people so…jerkish?

Ruby doesn’t seem unduly disturbed, though. Guess she’s grown accustomed to human foolishness. 😀Christmas tree

Life in the Land of the Dumb and the Feckless

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Correct position behind steering wheel for driving on Phoenix roads.

So you say you’re bored? Life is too calm? People around you persist in behaving like normal, sane human beings?

Welp, there’s a way to get around that predicament. It’s easy: Come to Phoenix, get in a car, and start driving!

Gaaaaaaaaaaghhhhhhhh!!!!!

If Days from Hell are crazy in normal times, in the Christmas season they’re BATSH!T crazy!

So I make my way to the Best Buy at about Camelback and 20th Street, there to glom a gift card for my son, as something that will pass for a Christmas present. Wander around ogling the technological wonders. Finally lose interest and roam back to the car. Start driving toward the’Hood, westerly ever westerly, and….

Ohhhhh yah. Wouldn’tcha know it? Traffic jam, traffic jam…and traffic jam on Camelback, one of the biggest surface streets in the city.

Crawl westward. Crawl…crawl…cr…HOLEE sh!t they’ve got the whole dam road, east AND westbound shut down at 12th street.

Guy ahead of me, bless his heart, drives like an old-time Phoenician. He’s assertive (read “aggressive as a hyena”) and he knows where he’s going. I settle into his tailwind.

We jerk north on 12th Street and proceed ever northerly. North. North. North. Now we’re in a neighborhood that I’ve never passed through slowly enough to examine. Twelfth is bordered on both sides by aging single- and two-story apartment buildings (once rentals, no doubt, but now condos). Lookin’ around, I think holeee maquerel, THIS is where we should have put Tootsie (SDXB’s mother) when we were forced to move her out of her beloved little condo after the damn place went to Hell on a Handcart. Why on earth didn’t we look in this area?”

Why…why…why, indeed?

Well, to begin with, I did look for places like that, but everything in our part of town — i.e., the area I knew anything about — was way too expensive. These places look like they would have been in the general price range of her soon-to-be abandoned garden apartment…and since her daughter, who was in on the project, was married to THE premier cardiac anesthesiologist in the Pacific Northwest…well, yes: they certainly COULD have afforded to get her into one of them. None of these places looked any fancier than Tootsie’s place, except (ahem) for the location.

But noooooooooo.

Some friend/distant relative of hers had bought a trailer on the far west side, where they would decamp to escape Michigan’s lovely winter months. Nothing would do but what, forgodsake, we had to put her in a trailer.

CAN you spell “stupid”?

It’s spelled t-r-a-i-l-e-r p-a-r-k,

So we get her into this tin can.

You understand: temps in the summers here range up to 120 degrees. Her relatives went home to Michigan in the summertime, so were unable to advise about the power bills in the multiple hundreds of dollars. You cannot air-condition a trailer…BECAUSE it effectively has no insulation.

Meanwhile, nothing would do but what she had to buy a trailer way to Hell and gone on the west side: a good hour’s drive from where SDXB and I were living.

You have not heard bitching until you’ve heard SDXB bellyache about having to drive (and drive and drive and drive and…) through the hideous westside traffic to attend to his mother. Wow!

Can’t say I blame him. It was a horrid drive.

He had an ex-girlfriend who was a Realtor. He asked her to advise…and…what a joke! She came up with exactly nothing viable. I looked around, but i are not a Realtor i are a english major…. I knew of a few patio home developments not far from here, but they were too expensive…and I was completely ignorant of the places to the east of 7th Street, where we could easily have found something that would have worked.

Picked up a Best Buy gift card for my son’s Christmas present. Now all I have to do is not lose it between now and the 25th. Easier said than done.

Son’s dog was surged yesterday. Nothing serious, he says: the dog grows these strange cysts…probably fatty tumors, I imagine. Greta the Gershep had a couple, but she didn’t develop them until she was well into her dotage. Charley the Golden Retriever has had these things since he was an addled-escent pup. M’hijito recently acquired a new vet — our old bunch having gone out of business and scattered to the winds.

Poor dog apparently was suffering somewhat yesterday. That — me being the skeptic that I am — would raise some real concern if he were mine. Not that I wouldn’t want to treat something that might harm him or cause him discomfort. But these things are apparently benign. Not at all sure I would subject an 11-year-old dog — who probably has just another year or two before the end of his normal lifespan — to any kind of unnecessary surgery.

ooooh wellll… Stop the world…i wanna get off!