We all have the stories: the dishwasher that gets delivered without a key part, which doesn’t arrive until six months later, leaving you washerless through Thanksgiving and Christmas; the stove which is supposed to be dual fuel but mistakenly arrives with a gas oven and is too heavy for the floor underneath to support it; the delivery man who, heeding nature’s call, relieves himself on the rhododendron near your garage, while the neighbors’ kids watch.
I’ve heard all the stories, which is why it always takes me so long to replace my appliances: I expect all hell to break loose and rather than have to deal with it—the scheduling aggravation, the abject idiocy, the one hand not knowing what the other is doing, the (often racist, misogynist) asshats masquerading as professionals—I just wait until the very last minute to buy new stuff. But when that last minute comes, I have to face the music, and right now, the fat lady is singing in my face so loudly that it’s like having Kate Smith in the next room.
It’s a simple story, and one to which I am sure you can relate: the refrigerator finally died. This was not a shock; it had been ill for a long, long time. Sometimes it would go off for no apparent reason; other times it would freeze everything solid to its interior walls, and I’d have to chip off pieces of tofu for my dinner; other times, it would leak a weird, slightly fetid liquid onto the floor, which would creep, like The Blob, across the kitchen towards the dining room. It was time for it to be taken out back and shot—to be put out of its own misery and ours, and for its life of hardworking, assembly-line mediocrity to come to a close.
So, off we went: we went to the big box stores. We went to slightly smaller box stores. And we decided to buy our fridge from a local, family-owned retailer. We went over. We picked it out—a nice, not-too-big, not-at-all fancy stainless steel Amana with a single fridge door, and a single freezer door on the bottom. We wrote out a check, and Susan said, “you know–I think I want an ice maker. Can we get an ice maker installed in the freezer?”
“Why yes you can, little lady,” the store owner said, like we had just stepped off a space ship.
Susan’s eyes lit up like she was a kid. And this is key: Susan’s wanting an installed ice maker is a very big thing. She’s of the “don’t worry, we’ll just chip some off a big block in the cellar” kind of mindset. So her wanting an installed ice maker is proof of her having made great techno-social strides.
Anyway, about three or four days later, two big bruising guys showed up, commended us on our good measuring skills, removed the sad and pathetic Magic Chef from where it stood, wheeled the new one—bumping and clattering the whole way—down our driveway and into our house. They hooked it up, peeled the protective tape off it, and took off. I backed up to admire the thing, and that was when I found the dent on the bottom door. I ran out after them; they (obviously) wanted no part of the problem, shouted “call the office,” and left.
“Our bottom door is dented,” I told the nice lady on the phone, in the service department.
“Okay then, we’ll order you a new one!” She was very excited. “It’ll take a week or so, and we’ll call you when it comes in, and schedule our service guys to come out and remove the old one, and hang the new one.”
(A week later, silence.)
I was okay, though, and not at all miffed, because, for the first time in my life, I was going to have ice! Ice, sweet ice. Enormous amounts regularly cranked out—enough for me to fill the sink and be able to cool down a pot of stock at a moment’s notice; enough for me to make cocktails for the neighbors who come over without warning. Oh, what a thrill.
So the install guy came over, ran the water line, and within five minutes, was out the door. On his way into his van, he said “make sure the lever is up, which is the on position.”
Something, for some reason, told me to look at the instruction booklet, which said, “make sure the lever is down, which is the on position.”
I waited 24 hours, peering in every once in a while to see if my precious booty was appearing, miraculously, in my ice box.
Nothing.
I waited another 24 hours.
Nothing.
I called the retailer.
“I bet you have the arm set in the wrong position, ma’am.” Suddenly I was talking to Hoss Cartright.
“No,” I said, “your genius installation people set it in the wrong position. Next question.”
“Do you have water?”
“No water. No ice. No nothing. Bupkus.” I did not mention that bupkus means goat shit in Yiddish.
“We’ll have to send them back out,” he said. “Earliest they can get there is next week, on Wednesday, between 10 and 2.”
“Fine,” I said, “I’ll be here.”
Yesterday, they called to confirm. Twice. 10 and 2. 10 and 2. 10 and 2. I felt like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man.
“Okay,” I said, “no problem.”
And at 8:30, I was out, dutifully walking my dog. I came back at 9:30 to a message from the install guy.
“We called and you weren’t home, so we’ve just gone on to the next job. Don’t know that we’ll be able to make it.”
I called him back.
“Look at your watch,” I said. “It is not yet 10. And now you tell me you might not make it?”
“Can’t be sure,” he said.
“I got two confirms yesterday, for between 10 and 2.”
“I might be able to be there around 5, but I’m not entirely sure.”
At which I hurled a string of expletives at him that would have made my father, a Navy man, cringe.
I called the dispatch. I called the manager. I called everyone on God’s green earth. And for what? A lousy, stinking ice maker. There might be a lesson here. Maybe analog really is the way to go.
At noon, the head of the install company called and said “I’m on my way…..” Good, I thought. Thank God someone is on their toes.
He arrived, and immediately asked me for the instruction booklet.
“You’re not instilling confidence,” I said.
“Well, ma’am.” he replied, “I’m just the office guy.”
After five minutes of poking around, Office Guy made the executive decision that I have a defective ice maker.
“It can get frustrating, I know,” he said, looking my fridge up and down. “By the way, you might want to call and see if they can do something about that dent in your door.”
