Unearthing a life.....

David (above) headed home for Oak Harbor around noon on Monday and Kelly (below) and I motored over to Lowe's Hardware, Etc., and bought a washer and drier. Lowe's advertises "next day installation, old machines hauled away", so it seemed like a safe place to quickly get what we wanted.

The world has been proving to me [lately] that there is no quick way to get what you want. What I wanted being a set of high-end Bosch front-loading machines that sit on elevated pedestals.

About 80% of the way through the purchasing process, the clerk says "Hmmmm .... that washer is about two weeks out." [I hate it when they use that 'blank blank out' phrase. It sounds like the object of your desire is crawling across a wasteland at a constant measureable speed and the clerk can give you an estimated time of arrival. About two weeks out.] We counter with, "Okay, the drier is the one that is threatening to go extinct ... can you deliver the drier tomorrow?" She assures us they can and the sale proceeds to its slightly amended conclusion.

Tuesday morning the Lowe's truck pulls up and two gentlemen unload the crated drier and wheel it into the garage. Then one of them speaks. And the words that come out of his mouth are: "We won't be able to install it today .... they didn't have the pedestal for it." Oh, the Mother of all Surprises! He goes on, "It'll be a day or two. We'll give you a call." A day and two passes. No call from Lowe's.

So we instigate the call and the person on the other end of the line says, "We're very sorry, sir, but we have no pedestals for it and we don't have any on order, so I can't say when we'll be able to install it." [None on order! They didn't even bother to order me one when they found out they had none?] I countered with "Give me the floor models. Truck them over here and take back the crated drier." That worked for them and this fine Saturday morning two different gentlemen arrived and brought in and almost completely installed the Bosch twins.

But at a certain point, I overheard one of the men say to the other, "There's no hose clamp here for this." And they start poking around as though someone might have hidden it inside the equipment. My counter this time was: "No problem! One of you get in my car and I'll zip you over to the store and you can get a hose clamp." That worked for them.

The new washer and drier are installed. Completely installed. They sit there like a couple of hunky battle droids out of Star Wars .... waiting to save us from soiled clothes.

The DSL technician did show up as promised on Thursday morning and [under the watchful eyes of Kelly and myself] did make the DSL installation and all necessary adjustments to the computer. Now we are operable at high speed. The only drawback was that we lost our old Silverlink e-mail address because now we are not linked to them. And when I established an e-mail account with Yahoo, Yahoo reached out and automatically grabbed my username from Yahoo Flickr and used it for the e-mail address. It's long and ungainly. It's now JamesK7Smyrna@yahoo.com . For both of us or either of us.

Friday Kelly and Morgan left to go back to California and I waltzed over crosstown to Parr Imports to buy a new VW vehicle [Jetta], intending to pay cash and thinking, as I am wont to do, that cash sales are quick sales. Wrong! I guess only bad things happen quickly. It took three bleeding hours! First the test drive (Loved it!) .... then my requirements 1) red exterior, 2) sun roof, & 3) tan leatherette interior. Not on the lot! Not on any lot in the State of Washington! Or so they said. But they estimated it would have 173 miles on it when I got it and that seems sort of Washington to me. But what the Hell, at least they found one. Then we get to the part that I thought would be quick. Payment. Wrong, wrong, wrong. First the salesman brings me back a form that I partially filled out earlier and says they want me to fill in the amount of my mortgage payment. I object that that info has no bearing on a cash sale that I could see, but I gave him the figure anyway. Then he flips the form around and (pointing at the appropriate spot) says 'they' wanted me to fill in the names of three people, with addresses, who know me, but do not live with me. "Oh, bullshit!" I said. "You take that back to 'them' and tell them I strongly object." He did and 'they' backed down. Then it went into the hands of the 'financial lady'. I could see her sitting in her office. I kept expecting a quick summons. It didn't come. I began to get very shakey and asked my salesman where the candy machine was as I was in need of a sugar adjustment. He put me in a Beattle and drove me a block away to another building that had a candy machine. Sugar salvation!

Forty-five minutes later she came and retrieved my faltering body. It took another twenty minutes to wade through and sign, in multiplicity, the stack of papers she'd prepared. At the end I asked, "How many more would there have been if I'd not been paying cash?"

"One," she says.

One! Bet it was a doozy though. Come Monday (optomistic outlook) I'll be in my new VW and I can run the 2005 Ford Focus through the carwash and JiffyLube and prepare it for giving to my granddaughter Rachel when she moves back to WA State in a couple of weeks.

All this writing has dried my throat out and I need to go have a liesurely beer with Bookworm and three of her cousins who are out lolling about on OUR DECK!