Dispatches from Hell

By Golly! American Express’s white charger just lurched into battle! All it took to apply the spurs was a couple of phone calls. 

The refrigerator mess has gotten worse and worse. The damn thing that I spent $1440 on is a piece of junk: verifiable, genu-wine junk. The retailer, B&B Appliances, refuses to take it back, telling me effectively “Tough nougies, and screw you very much.”

Guess I haven’t gone into detail about that fine fiasco.

My old fridge being on its last legs, I bought a new GE refrigerator to replace my old side-by-side compartment fridge  and freezer. The new one is an old-fashioned model with one refrigerator compartment and one top freezer compartment. This, because sometimes the side-by-side sections in the previous (otherwise perfectly fine…) fridge weren’t wide enough to accommodate some item I wanted to put in there.

I bought this at the venerable B&B Appliances, primarily by way of “buying local.” At the same time I also purchased a new microwave, because the old one would barely reheat a cup of coffee when set on “high.” I figure when Satan & Proserpine, the house’s previous owners, did their gigantic house remodeling job, they must have bought those appliances at the same time. So, of course…they’re crapping out at the same time!

Big mistake, this purchase:

• The refrigerator compartment is too small to hold more than a day or two worth of food.
• The freezer has no ice-maker.
• The thing makes a weird, loud noise when it kicks on, a kind of uproarious BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ….
• Turns out you can’t buy ice trays for love nor money. NO ONE SELLS THEM! Well…except Amazon. And they’re all those plastic things, the ones you have to twist and wrestle with to get the ice cubes out. And good luck with that.
• This means to have ice, I’ll have to buy bags of Crystal ice…no longer easy to find, because…well, everyone has fridges with ice-makers.

So…here I yam, figuring I’m going to have to donate this piece of junk to charity (won’t THEY be pleased!) and pony up another $1500 for a decent fridge. I trudge around Best Buy, eyeballing the merchandise. This morning — well, yesterday morning, because it’s 3 a.m. the next day as we scribble — I’m cruising home from Best Buy and AJ’s, and as I turn into the ’Hood, I spot Marge out in front of her house. Marge is the Late, Great Wade’s wife — he died in surgery for recurrent brain tumors. She has relatives in the Midwest and also a house up north in the mountains, so she’s not home a lot.

I stop and say hello. She asks how I’m doing, and I relate a Reader’s Digest Condensed Version of my sad story.

Says she, barely taking a breath, “Have you disputed the charge with American Express?

Uhmmm….  “N-n-n-o-o…hadn’t thought of that.”

“Well, do it. That’s why you have an American Express card.”

Holy Mackerel! Not to say “duuuuhhhhhh…..”

Back in the house…grab the AMEX card…grab the phone…dial the number on the back of the card. Describe the whole sad/outrageous story to the CSR. She takes my phone number. She says they’ll get on it…

Shortly, the phone rings: AMEX dispute/fraud department. I recite the tale to that guy. He transcribes the story in minute detail. And he seems to take this shenanigan quite seriously. He says they’ll have a chat with B&B.

Frankly, I’ll be VERY surprised if they get far. But on the other hand it was pretty clear that B&B — like everybody else and his little brother — figures they can take advantage of an Old Bat and get away with it. They may not feel the same way when confronted with the corporate might of American Express. 😀

In that case, presumably they’ll come and get their ludicrous excuse for a refrigerator. If not, I’m donating it to the Salvation Army, which at least will allow me to deduct some or all of the cost from my income taxes. Tomorrow morning I’ll buy or (preferably) borrow a Coleman cooler, which will hold food for a couple of days, until I can get Best Buy over here with a real refrigerator. Fortunately, I have a chest freezer, which can hold the currently small inventory of frozen stuff and maybe some ice.

Tomorrow (uhmm…make that “today”) Best Buy is sending a crew over to install the Ring camera and lights I bought. They’re going on the east side under the eaves (I hope), where they will capture a clear view of the shenanigans at Tony the Romanian Landlord’s co-ed reform school.

He had the darlin’s out of there for a week or 10 days — apparently after the cops ambushed him, he had to make some serious renovations to the inside of that house. But this afternoon he caravaned them all back in several cars. If these devices aren’t too hard to use, I may install another one over the front door, so I can see who’s outside before opening to the next pounding on the screen.

The little sweeties were throwing rocks at the side of the house again last night. And…heh! The front door to that house apparently sticks when you try to close it. So every time they go in or out, they SLAM!!!! the door so hard you can hear the thud! all the way on the far end of my house, where the concussion vibrates the walls and windows. Tony must figure that’s a real funny way to inflict a little extra revenge on the neighbors; otherwise he would have told the workmen he’s had over there to fix the goddamn door.

I imagine when they see that camera, they’ll throw rocks at that, too, until they break it.

Desert landscaping — most of the houses here have xeric landscaping — is often decorated with fake “streams”of river rock, fist-sized pieces of granite and whatnot eroded into smooth ovals, just about perfect for throwing around. I’ve got a fair amount of it in my front yard, and the house directly next door to the Romanian reform school also has a “river”of rock, giving the kiddies a gold mine of projectiles to throw around.

Buying the damn camera and installing it will set me back another $400, on top of the $1500 for the microwave and the junk fridge. Fortunately, there’s plenty in the checking account for the nonce. But it means that I’ll have to make another drawdown from savings to cover the bills.

Not the end of the world…unless we have another recession, another stock market crash. Which, the way life has been going of late, you can be sure will inevitably happen about the time all these fine “improvements” are installed.