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Monthly Archives: November 2012

everything might not be eventual, but stoves are

Posted on November 21, 2012

A lot of people have suggested I escalate the matter of the possessed stove I recently purchased.  Here’s why I haven’t.

For one, I wasn’t able to track down any details on Ohio and a lemon law as applies to non-vehicles.  For another, I figured court/etc. would take so much longer than just letting the Sears repair crew try to fix it.

Also, I wanted this stove.

Well actually…I wanted the stove I had in the first place.  I wanted to get it fixed, because of this sad fact:  It was the first oven I’ve ever owned that worked right.  I’m 47 years old and I’ve had two ovens that made heat, and  only one that kept the right temperature.

Sad fact or no, Mr Moth was not so much into spending potentially hundreds of dollars to fix a stove that was here when we moved in.  He tried repeatedly to repair it, but to no avail.  So we bought the used stove.  It worked for what, a week?  Two weeks?  Until I broke off the oven knob and got it stuck in the ON position.  I really thought I would lose my mind, because there was so much else going on, in addition to being buried in school projects all the time, things like the Post Office arbitrarily deciding Zor doesn’t live here and returning all her mail to the senders, and the diabetic supply house deciding not to send me any diabetic supplies for weeks at a time, and some jackass pretending to be me and repeatedly getting my cell phone canceled.

Oh, and don’t forget the dishwasher had to be replaced also.

Anyhow, I decided it would be faster and cheaper to buy another stove.  I didn’t want to, because I hate change.  But I also was sick of dealing with Stove Drama.  (Little did I realize!)  So I went to the outlet store to get a particular stove I saw on their website, but when I got there, I hated it.  The burner racks were super tall, and I imagined pots of boiling liquid sliding off them like burning Chevies falling off a cliff.  Then I saw this stove.  It was love at first sight.  Naturally this stove cost more.  And no, I’m not saying how much more.  I will say the total sticker price was twice what I thought a stove should cost, but.

What price stove love?

I took pictures of Mr Moth loading it in the truck.  He worked as a Sears appliance delivery guy back in his salad days, so we brought the stove home and he installed it.  It worked once, sort of.  We assumed the malfunction was user error related to the electronic timer.  As it turned out, not.  It never even tried to work right again.

Then started the series of calls to Sears.  The first call was epic, as I got shunted from English as a Second Language call center to English as a Mystery Language call center.  Finally, a native speaker!  Oh wait…wrong department.  The moron kept trying to sell me an extended warranty.  I’m like, “I bought a brand new stove that doesn’t WORK.  I am not giving you any more money.  FIX MY STOVE.”

“We’re not in the business of fixing stoves,” this charmer informed me.  “We sell protection.”

I snorted.  “Yeah, YOU AND THE MAFIA.”

“What?”

“Look, just let me talk to someone who can FIX MY BRAND NEW STOVE.”

Eventually they sent out the first asshole stove guy who came right at quitting time, acted like he didn’t want to be bothered, and told us–erroneously–that our house wiring was a death trap and the entire place needed rewired. 

Anyhow…eventually we got that sorted, and then I called the repair people again.  This time I got caught in the EVIL VOICE MENU LOOP FROM HELL.  Because, get this–the Sears Appliance Warranty voice menu does not recognize the word stove.

That’s right.  No stoves.  And here in the Middle, we don’t say RANGE.  Range is something people on The Price is Right say.  Kinda like sofa.

Anyhow, I ended up screaming into the phone, STOVE, STOVE, it’s a mother-fuckin STOVE you FUCKING MORON.

Yeah, not my finest moment.

Here’s the part I won’t be able to make sense of to anyone, and that’s that I still loved this stove.  I still wanted this stove.  In a way it was like Cobie.  He’s not all that good of a dog, but I adopted him, I committed to him, and I’m keeping him even though he’s a pita, because he’s mine and I love him.  Crazy of me, I know, but I didn’t so much buy a stove, as adopted it.

Even Mr Moth and Zor, neither of whom are as prone as I am to forming emotional attachments to non-sentient objects, agreed that the stovetop of this stove is amazing.  Water boils timely!  Things cook evenly!  Fewer things burn!  We never knew there could be a difference from one gas ring to another, but there is, there totally is.

They sent a different stove guy–Larry.  Probably one generation out of a Holler somewhere, judging by his speech, he filled me with utter trust.  Larry was obviously one of my people.  After Larry’s first failed attempt to fix my stove, the warranty guy (the one on the phone, IT’S A STOVE, GODDAMMIT) told me it was up to the repair guy when or if to “compensate.” The thing is, they don’t make this stove anymore, so they couldn’t just hand me a new one, it was either fix this stove or get a different one.  Similar stoves on the Sears site are currently going for about a thousand bucks, an amount substantially more than the too-much I already paid, and I was pretty sure they weren’t going to give me one of those babies.

Larry still thought he could fix it.  I wanted him to fix it.  Mr Moth was agreeable.

On his second trip out, Larry ordered a gas valve.  My faith in him wavered, because internet research had convinced me it had to be the computer that was wrong with it.  And where else would a demon live but in a computer?  Ten days later (long delays due to my impossible schedule and not theirs) Larry came, at six-thirty at night, and put the valve in.  He apologized repeatedly for the delay.  He didn’t act like he was doing me some favor, or like he’d rather be somewhere else (although I’m quite sure he would have).

He put in the valve.  He declared the stove fixed.  He showed me the old valve, which was visibly but subtly off/bent/crooked.  It seemed kind of unlikely that something so minor could cause such trouble, and after all, my burners and the broiler still worked.

I said, “Well, no offense, but I hope I don’t see you again,” although since I still thought the computer was the problem, I was pretty sure I’d be seeing him again.

“Well not here at least,” he said cheerfully, and we said our goodbyes.

We made pizza rolls as an experiment.

They cooked.

We left the oven on for two hours.  Every time the igniter clicked, it was followed by the soft and glorious FWUMP of lighting gas.  Just how it’s supposed to work.

Each time we heard it, Mr Moth and I exchanged hopeful but wary glances across the table.  (And one time the ice maker filled, and Mr Moth’s eyes got all wide and alarmed.  This amused me, so I thought I’d share.)

A lot of people tell me me I write like Erma Bombeck–well, people who haven’t heard me swear say that.  So on the upside of all this, I can now write a Bombeck-with-cursing book.  I think I’ll call it “Tuesdays With Larry.”

Larry the Stove Guy.  Larry the Exorcist.  Take your pick.

I am not prepared to declare this saga over just yet.  Zor and I are about to put Regan the Possessed Stove through her paces by baking some sugar-free pumpkin pies.  If that’s a success, I have a ham and a cobbler on the schedule for tomorrow.

If all is still functional next week, I plan to contact Sears and see if I can negotiate a little something-something for my aggravation.

We shall see.

Meanwhile, Happy Pie Day, everyone.  And may none of your stoves become possessed in the near future!

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Posted in Diary | Tags: epic saga, hassles |

why this term sucks like an electrolux

Posted on November 11, 2012

This probably won’t interest anyone but me, but I believe I have had an epiphany as to why this semester has sucked so hard and been so long (apart from the fact that semesters are long, compared to the quarterly term system of last year).

This term sucks because I now spend the  most creative, productive part of every day getting ready for, and driving to school.

How much does that suck? 

It sucks like a chest wound. 

It sucks like a Filter Queen Dream Team.

It sucks aliens through a crack in the hull.

Okay, I’ll try to stop using the word “sucks” now, but let’s face it.  THIS.  SUCKS.

Royally.  Vigorously.  Relentlessly.

It sucks in all the colors of the spectrum.

Ordinarily I would get up in the morning, pee, let dogs out, empty the dishwasher, make coffee, take meds that have to be taken on an empty stomach, let dogs in and cat out, drink coffee while checking facebook, let cat in and dogs out, and in, out, and in…  Up to here, my day has not changed much, but here comes the difference.  After all this–still in my p.j.s, sorry Fly Lady–I would do things.

Once upon a time, “things” =ed “writing.”  As recently as spring quarter, “things” =ed futzing around with Adobe, sketching, brainstorming, surfing for ideas.  If I’ve been wrestling with a problem, the answer will often come to me as I wake up or soon after, and this is when I can get these solutions down or even start implementing them.

Not anymore.  First class starts at eight, so I spend this time making breakfast, getting dressed, brushing my teeth, driving…driving…driving.

And, four hours later, when we finally get to lunch break, I’m so desperate to get the hell away from the computer, forget about playing a game or chatting with friends.  I go sit in the crappy lounge with its unusably low tables and wait for the break to be over.  I could read, or play a game, but my eyes are tired and my head usually hurts.  I eat my packed lunch, stare at nothing, and try not to think too much about how much I wish I was at home, preferably on the deck with dogs.  (I also try not to think about how I can’t go that long without peeing, and neither can Kelly.)

I would like the work better if it started at, say, 10:00.  Like there’s a job out there with those hours.  So I’m muddling along.  My work is not as good as it has been during previous terms.  At least now I know why, although it’s small consolation.

Blargh.

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Posted in Diary | Tags: school |

friday five

Posted on November 2, 2012

One:  I went to the eye surgeon yesterday and got dilated, which I abhor.  He found a “thickening” at the back of my right eye.  It’s not something he can zap, so now I have to take drops.  The instructions on the bottle don’t match the instructions he told me, so now I have to call and find out which are the correct instructions.  Also I need to ask, “A thickening of what?” because I have no idea.

Two:  I get to take Cobie back to the vet today.  T-Moth took him on Tuesday and Cobie had such a conniption he had to be muzzled, and even then they couldn’t get blood for his heartworm test because of all the thrashing, during the course of which he fattened T-Moth’s lip.  The vet thought Cobie tried to bite, but I think it’s unlikely he was he meant business.  He does this warning air-snap when crowded, and I’m betting that’s what they observed.  A guest at a party once pursued him until he hid under a lawn chair, reached in after him, and inflicted unwanted petting upon him.  His eyes rolled and his flanks heaved with stress, but he didn’t bite, or even warn.

It probably helped that she was young and female.

I once had a big goofy dog that never previously offered to bite anyone, yet who bit a pizza driver, so I would never say a given dog would never bite. I’ve been on both sides as the dog owner and the pizza driver, which is the source of my belief that any dog will bite, given the right circumstances.  So the muzzle is probably a good idea just to keep everyone safe, especially since Cobie’s teeth are enormous, rather like the rest of him.  People who feel safe probably give off calmer vibes than ones that are worried about having their face removed.

Anyway, his mommy will take him.  Kelly will go too.  And he has pills to make him happy.  I hope not too happy though, because no one wants to carry a hundred pound dog.

Three:  Someone is coming later to install one new properly grounded outlet so I can plug in the broken-ass stove Sears sold me and they will then deign to come fix the damn thing.  We discovered that only the outlet the stove is plugged into reads as reversed polarity, and then only when the stove is plugged in.  So the lack of grounding is on us, but that reverse polarity is on the stove itself.  The brand new $600 stove.

They better fix or replace that sumbitch, that’s all I’m saying.

Four:  I’m not doing NaNo.  This should not come as news.

Five:  Oliver has emerged from the wall.  He hurt his passenger side rear paw, and when I got out the cat carrier he vanished.  We had to put food near his hidey hole, the wall where he went to ground after we moved here.  It took three adults and a teenager to stuff him into the carrier to bring him here.  People bled.  I knew I would never be able to get him to a vet unless he was at death’s door.

Mind you, I don’t want Oliver dying at all, but especially not deep inside a load-bearing wall.  I put the cat carrier away.  He still wouldn’t come out except occasionally at  night.  It’s like he knew I wouldn’t take him to the vet at night.

Previously I kept Oliver’s feeding station and litter box in the utility room, and kept dogs out of there with a baby gate.  Now Oliver can’t jump the gate.  It has been a huge unending pain keeping dogs out of the cat food and litter box, especially Kelly, who is smaller than Oliver and so can get into any space he can.  She can climb gates too, but chooses not to, I think because Cobie disapproves of gate-climbing.

Aggravatingly, Oliver has resumed jumping onto the kitchen table and my desk, where he clears space for himself by flinging anything in his way onto the floor where dogs can get it, but he still won’t jump the gate.  He will walk on anyone who sits on the sofa though.  Endlessly.  Back and forth and back and forth.  Limpy, but seemingly content.  I missed his vicious butt while he was living in the wall.  I guess I’ll have to go back to clearing off the table though.  And maybe change his name to Chester.

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Posted in Diary | Tags: critters, health |

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