Boiling With Rage II: Electric Bugaloo

DAMN THE MAN! FIGHT THE POWER!

You’ll have to excuse me if I seem a little hyped up today, it’s just that I feel better than Norma Rae did after she defeated Apollo Creed. You see, last night, in the darkest hours of my water heater drama, when I was feeling like the peon of big business, I mustered my courage, girded my cojones, and took a stand. And then I fired Sears.

When we last left off, I was quickly becoming a tornado of rage, waiting for the Sears installer to come and put in our new water heater. At that time he was more than an hour and a half late for our scheduled 3pm to 5pm window, and my patience had quit. I called, again, only to be told that things had been pushed back once more, and that he would probably be there about 8pm. Two thoughts sprung to my mind. The first was that this poor installer needed to join a union, and insist that Sears hire more than one person to do every job in the valley. The second was that I was going to kill someone – but I wasn’t going to do it until the new water heater was installed. Just out of curiosity, I asked the dispatcher how long the installation would take. An hour to ninety minutes she replied, depending on if everything goes smoothly. Now, I am not the wisest person in the world, but I know one thing to be true – nothing ever goes smoothly. So, by my estimation, if this guy showed up at the new and improved arrival time, he wasn’t going to be out of there until at least ten. Um, no. So, in my nicest Libby voice, I told the dispatcher that would not work, and that I needed to have him come the next day. She started to say, “well, we are really busy” before my growl cut her off. We set a window of between ten and noon. No, it wasn’t going to be installed within 24 hours like Sears promised, and yes, I was going to have to leave work early, but I just wanted it fucking done.

I guess I could have left well enough alone. I knew the guy was coming the next day, and I damn sure knew he would be on time. But there was something gnawing at me, something that I couldn’t let go of – and that was the feeling of injustice. I was getting walked all over, and I was paying for the privilege. So I made one more phone call, and that is when it all exploded…

The young man who answered the Sears installation help line was nice enough, asking me about my evening, and how I was doing. When I responded not well, that I had been in water heater installation hell for the last five hours, he wasn’t surprised at all. In fact, he had already heard about my day, from the dispatcher, who had e-mailed to let them know that I had been rude.

Wait for it.

RUDE??? UM, WHAT? YOU WANT TO SEE RUDE, SWEETHEART? I WILL SHOW YOU RUDE. I CAN BE THE RUDEST MOTHERFUCKER YOU HAVE EVER SEEN. I CAN OUT RUDE RUDY HUXTABLE! YOU MUST HAVE BEEN RAISED BY MEERKATS TO THINK THAT WHAT I WAS SAYING WAS RUDE. DIRECT? YES. A LITTLE PISSY? DEFINITELY. BUT RUDE? I THINK NOT.

That’s what was going on in my head. What came out of my mouth though was “I want to cancel this order.” The young man asked if there was anything he could do to change my mind. I said he could knock money off the installation. He countered with a gift card offer. I was going to tell him where to stick his gift card sideways – but I didn’t want to be rude.

There is a happy ending to this story though. Minutes after I posted my blog about water heater problems people started calling and e-mailing offering to help. Within hours our friends Emily and Justin were at our house helping us make a list of all the things we would need at the hardware store to install the water heater ourselves. And as I write this? Luke’s Dad Jeremy is in the basement hooking up said water heater. In total it will cost me almost half of what I was going to pay Sears – plus a couple of beers. Totally worth it.

DAMN THE MAN! FIGHT THE POWER!