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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.

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.

Is Costco Worth the Hassle?

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So…yes: this afternoon it was off to Costco, after a lengthy absence from those sylvan fields. Grand fun, in a shopper-ish way… Two bottles of nice wine at a more or less cut rate (one red, one white). My favorite, unmatchable cheddar cheese — can’t get anything remotely like it in any of the local grocery stores. A sweet little long-sleeved shirt, truly softer than soft. A boxful of quinoa salad, very excellent. Two big containers of chopped vegetable and barley soup, all tomatoey and delicious-looking.

And on and on.

Stand in line at the cash registers. Watch the cows come home. Breeze through the check-out. Finally get out of the store and…

…yeah…

Hit the road just as the rush hour gears up.

Ugh!!!!!

Long, slow, annoying, jack-around drive home. But finally get here without killing or being killed. Unload the car. Feed the dawg. Give her one of the new allegedly tooth-cleaning treats.

The soonest I managed to get Ruby in to Wonder-Vet’s for a surgical tooth descaling and polishing is next April!!!!! So if these silly chew things work, she should be in much better shape for that misadventure.

In the meantime, though: yech! What an awful trip. Which brings us to the Question of the Day:

WHY AM I DOING THIS?

Yes. Why do I shop at Costco at all?

Truth to tell, it’s been a good two or three months since I last trudged out there. Lately, it’s occurred to me that I can buy everything (except the kewl cheap clothing) at AJ’s, Safeway/Albertson’s, and Sprouts. Don’t even have to risk my life for some of that: I can walk to the Albertson’s and the Sprouts.

I wouldn’t do so — at least, not without a hefty male companion — because it’s unsafe to walk down there, whether through the ‘Hood or along Conduit of Blight Blvd. Especially along CofB…. But it’s a two-minute drive in the car. Both Albertson’s and Sprouts now have security guards shooing the hustlers out of the parking lots.

AJ’s is a little bit of a drive, especially near the rush hours…but nothing like the horror show entailed in driving way to Hell and gone to either of the nearest Costco stores.

Except for the beloved casual clothing items, everything I would ordinarily buy at Costco is available at the local grocers. So…

So…

So, yeah: why AM i doing that?

?????

Right. I don’t think I’m gonna do it any more.

May renew my membership (their plans start at $60 p/a). But I think probably not. Especially if I find I’m only going out there a few times a year. Their automotive department truly did pay for itself with the late, great tire episode. Without a doubt, I got my money back in spades after having bought the Dog Chariot’s tires at Costco. But…does that require me to shop in their store?

Prob’ly not.

I think, yea verily, that I’ll keep up the Costco membership (for the sake of the tire shop) but limit shopping trips to a few a year, in search of specific items you can’t get easily at other venues.

Meanwhile, speaking of doggy treats: it’s time to walk Ruby…or rather, for Ruby to walk the Human.

Food Prices: Brace for Impact!

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This just in from my friend La Maya, who, having escaped the Great Desert University, is living in retired splendor in Northern California:

As I recall you were not an egg-eater, but just a heads up on a situation that may make it to Arizona. Apparently, CA has been struck by the bird flu. I went to Trader Joe’s and the egg shelf was empty. Inquired with manager because while I’ve seen them get low on the eggs I have never seen a completely empty section. Well, he informed me that the bird flu has hit the chicken stock so they are no longer ordering from their distributor. Then the next day I get an email from my sister in the Imperial Valley, who was informing all of us sisters to be prepared if and when we can find eggs: her husband paid $8.79 for a dozen and a half of eggs. The flats of eggs were going for $75 to $80. Yikes! I eat eggs almost every day of my life….not a good situation….

Something to be aware of. But that’s not all. From FaM reader JestJack, a long-time frugalist who lives on the East Coast:

Aaaand here in the Free State ….where nothing is free…Eggs are going for $5 a dozen…And was chatting with a DF who is in the cattle business…He warns “ya ain’t seen  nothing yet” as far as beef prices…Looks like beef will be more of a “garnish” in the near future…I just scored some grass fed” NY Strips on a “whim” for $7.99 on discount…They were delicious…DW was tickled pink!

Hmmm…. Few things would drive me to Costco on the day before Christmas weekend. But this just may. La Maya’s right: I can’t eat unadulterated eggs (they make me baroquely sick unless mixed with other ingredients). But word of astronomical beef prices certainly could get me off my duff.

One package of Costco steaks lasts me for months, partly because I eat many things other than beef and partly because a Costco lifetime supply is just about that. When you cut a package of four steaks into single-serving sizes, you end up with enough meat for 12 to 16 meals.

Well then, I’d better get going: it’s already 8:30, Costco opens at 10, it’s a half-hour drive to the nearest store, and I’m not even dressed yet. And so, awayyyyyyy…..

good-BYE, Costco…and dammit, this time I mean it!

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You realize…if you want to buy 89 tons of cheap individually wrapped candies to hand out to the Poor Kids who are bussed into your neighborhood for Hallowe’en, you can get that stuff at Target. Or Walmart. Or for that matter at Safeway, Albertson’s, Fry’s, or Walgreen’s. You don’t HAVE to go to Costco to buy a lifetime supply of junk candy. Or of…well…of anything.

Costco is where I went today, though, by way of stocking up for this year’s onslaught of kiddies and teenagers. The ‘Hood is flanked on two sides by low-income districts, meaning that every Hallowe’en we are flooded with hordes of cutie-pies and silly teenagers in costume. This makes for a great neighborhood party: everyone hangs out on their driveways to greet the panhandling kids, and a grand time is had by all.

So today I was despatched to snare a cache of individually wrapped candies for the coming shindig. Costco seemed like the logical destination, since while I was at it I could stock up on a few things that are running low here at the Funny Farm.

But…maybe not…

Alas. They have decimated their cheap wine offerings. They used to have a wonderful selection of wines in the $8 to $12 range — I mean, awesome. No more. Want a drinkable bottle of wine there? Prepare to spend upwards of 15 or 18 bucks,

No, this is not inflation. Albertson’s, Sprouts, Fry’s, Trader Joe’s, and — hevvin help us — even the ritzy-titzy AJ’s all offer a generous selection of cheapo wines, highly drinkable. Prices are about the same (in the $8 to $12 range), and deliciousness is highly comparable in all the other stores.

The Paradise Valley Costco’s layout is damn near non-navigable. In addition to our communal supply of Hallowe’en candy, I wanted to buy one of Costco’s lifetime-supply bottles of aspirin. Into the pharmacy dept. Search high. Search low. Search medium. Search high and low again. CAN. NOT. FIND. A. FREAKIN’ BOTTLE OF ASPIRIN.

Since this is a commodity you need by the time you get out of the place, presumably my fellow customers have cleared the shelves and gulped down all the product.

Did find a nice package of rack of lamb, one of the things I went specifically to that store to buy.

But…

Y’know…

AJ’s also has superior rack of lamb. And you don’t have to do battle to get to the meat counter for the purpose of grabbing a package of it.

**

But the main issue with Costco shopping is…well…Costco customers.

You think Walmart customers are characters? Jayzuz! Take 45 minutes or an hour to watch Costco customers in action! They leave Walmart People in the dust.

Honest-ta-Gawd, I do NOT understand how Costco employees who work the floor in those stores keep a grip on their sanity! WHAT a job!

Today, as is invariably usual, I got stuck behind some stupid woman who, mesmerized by the glory of the stacks and stacks of merchandise, was rolling her cart right up the middle of the aisles. She would stop, stand there, and stare…while everyone on both sides of her, coming and going, waited for her to get the hell out of the way.

This is not a “sometimes” occurrence. It’s something that seems to happen every time I go into a Costco store.

Y’know, aisles in a grocery store or a drugstore are no wider. If anything, Costco’s aisles are considerably more generous than a Safeway’s or a Walgreen’s. But people don’t seem to pull that stunt in those stores. For the life of me, I cannot understand what gets into people who do that!

Why this is happening — whether it’s because there’s so much variety of merchandise people zone out as they search for what they want or whether a particular type of chucklehead is attracted to Costco — I cannot imagine. All I know is it makes me crazy. And I think I’m not gonna go back there, unless it’s under exceptional duress.

There are things you can’t get in these parts except at Costco or at Amazon. For that reason, it makes sense to maintain a membership, either in order to go there oneself or so as to send Instacart runners. But…if the only time I shop there is when I need something that’s not sold anywhere else and I don’t wanna wait for Amazon to deliver it, I’m surely going to shop there lots, lots less.

‘Bye, Amazon!

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So I needed a new pair of padded bicycling gloves to walk Ruby the Corgi, a powerful little engine who drags the human fiercely enough that a leash will rub the skin right off the palms of your hands. Toooo lazy to drive to the bike store and buy a new pair, I stupidly decided to order a pair of bicycling gloves, size medium, from Amazon. They arrive; I try them on…can’t even get them up to my wrists. These may be “medium” for a six-year-old, but not for a grown woman.

No, I am NOT fat: 5’6″ & 125 lb.

Gotta send them back.

But lo! We have a change in our dealings with that august online retailer! Evidently Amazon doesn’t want people sending unusable junk back anymore…you can hardly blame them, I guess. So they’ve devised a way to discourage people from returning stuff, by adding a layer of hassle to make the process difficult. Can you take the package to the nearest UPS store and just ship it back? Ohhhhh nooooooo!

No more!

Now have to schlep it all the way across the city to the nearest Whole Foods (!!!!) and jump through a row of hoops there.

I have no business to transact at or near a Whole Foods — the groceries are overpriced, and selection is better at other local stores. So this offends at the outset.

But that’s not all:

First, I have to visit the credit union for the day’s first errand. From there to the Whole Foods and back to my house is TWENTY-FIVE AND SEVEN-TENTHS MILES. Yes: that’s 25.7 miles to return ONE STUPID LITTLE ITEM. It’s a quarter of the way to Tucson from here.

Gasoline is going for $4.50 a gallon just now. I get about 19 mpg on my aging Venza. Sooo….it costs me around $5 in gas to send this ridiculous purchase back to Amazon, when I could have WALKED to either the UPS Store or the mailboxes store in my neighborhood.

Once I arrive at the Whole Foods, I ask a clerk where I can return a useless Amazon purchase. She directs me to a DIY kiosk!!!

Y’know what I say to that, dear Amazon?

..I..

That’s what I say to that. With an F and a Y and a u. Once and for all!

On the way home through the crushing, homicidal traffic (tempers grow short here in Phoenix, when the weather is both hot and muggy), I stopped at a bicycling shop and bought a pair of gloves there. They fit.

And I felt remarkably good about BUYING LOCAL.

It’ll be a cold day in an Arizona August before I buy anything else from Amazon.