Something To Stuff Up My Christmas Stocking

Our side by side refrigerator/freezer just bit the big one. Of course it had to happen just before the holidays and the visiting guests that come along with it. Luckily we have another chest freezer and refrigerator in the garage. Because the wife keeps enough food tucked away in our units to feed a small nation for a day, without the added appliances it would have been a disaster on a catastrophic level.

Seeings how we purchased the appliance at Sears, we called for one of their repairmen. After a few minutes of laying on the floor while clinking this and clanking on that, he gave me that look as if his patient had just flat-lined. The refrigerator’s compressor was shot. It absolutely amazes me that one working part among so many, along with labor, can cost more than a brand new unit.

The cost to repair?  Approximately $1000.00. A new side by side unit, this one with an ice maker, which our old one didn’t have…$889.00 plus tax and delivery. Just like Bic lighters and diapers, it seems so many things have become “disposable.” But unlike a lighter or diapers, appliances first require a repairman to tell me it’s disposable, and that cost $200.00. And he just happened to have a Sears brochure showing their complete line of side by sides. And because our need for a working refrigerator teatered on the edge of desperate, he had us by the short hairs. Not long back the same thing happened when my computer bit the dust. It cost me $150.00 to be told my computer was disposable. And, of course, he just happened to have one ready to put in.

I know there are shysters out there who take advantage of our ignorance. When it comes to repairs I wouldn’t know a hard drive from one that’s soft and fluffy, leaving me with no recourse but to shrug and reply, “Okay, if you say so.”

Oh well, what’s a savings account for if not emergencies.