This is the story of why no deed goes unpunished.
Two weeks ago the MIL’s dishwasher stopped working. Luckily, it didn’t explode and flood her kitchen. That is about the only good thing to come out of this ordeal. The better-half took her to a doctor’s appointment shortly thereafter and on their way home they planned to stop at Sears to order up a dishwasher. A huge storm hit and the power was knocked out. So much for that idea.
Last Saturday, the better-half went to Sears and ordered one up by himself (there are only so many features available in a certain price range–and really who cares as long as the plates come out clean). The sales person assured him the machine would be at that location on Thursday.
Yesterday, the better-half was ferrying his mother around again and they stopped by Sears on the way home to pick up the dishwasher. It wasn’t there. They were given someone else’s machine (nice) and were given a dishwasher in a box that was wet on the bottom (nicer) and that had a huge gash in the cardboard (you know how this story is going to end up, don’t you). The better-half called me and relayed the ordeal and asked that I meet them at her house so we could eat dinner and install the machine. Of course, his mother hadn’t done diddly about dinner so they had to go to O’Charley’s to get take-out (she knew for days that the plan was feed us dinner and we’ll install the machine–furthermore, it was decided days ago that we’d grill something and then install).
They got to O’Charley’s and, apparently, it is difficult to go in there, order dinner and pick it up from the To Go counter. The better-half said he should have gone out to the truck and phoned it in. I said he should have just stood in the lobby and phoned it in and said that he’d be there in 20 steps to pick it up. The order wasn’t right, of course. But, by the time we realized that it was wrong, we were already at her house and eating it.
I should mention that his mother likes her clutter. We had to clear off the kitchen table to eat and we had to push some stuff out of the way so we could access counter space while working on the dishwasher. As we’re tearing the old broken machine out of the space, we find several strange things: the machine was wired into the house; the plumbing was so jack-legged that I can’t explain it; and there were candy wrappers in the space behind the dishwasher. I should mention that while we’re both crouched on the floor working on disconnecting the plumbing and the wiring, the MIL is wandering around the kitchen making hummingbird feeder syrup. Why? Because it was highly convenient to have her right the FREAK there while we’re working.
We removed the old machine (without tearing the flooring which is something I figured would happen) and took it out to her front porch. We left it there. She just needs an old couch and a hound dog on the front porch now to make the scene complete. Then we carefully removed the box from the dishwasher as the instructions stated. Sooprise, Sooprise. A big gash is on the front of the dishwasher.
We took it back to Sears and let me tell you the Customer Service wonkette at the Virginia Center Commons store is oh so very not helpful. We got our money back. Then we drove over to Lowe’s on RT 1. We couldn’t even get the appliance salesman to acknowledge that we were there. Granted, he had another customer but he at least spoke to another hapless customer who was wandering around. The better-half tracked down some other employee and was rebuffed and told to wait for the appliance guy. We waited 15 minutes and then split. We were reminded why we don’t shop at Lowe’s. Note to Lowe’s: get someone to freaking take customer’s money. Your numbers will go up.
We got home close to 11pm and his mother has no dishwasher. We’re headed to Home Depot at lunch to, hopefully, buy one and pay to have it installed.