Well. That was something.
I’m talking about the J6 hearing, of course. I couldn’t hear every word, because the contractors are finally here — after a 10-month wait, more or less — to do our bathrooms, and today was demo day. But between the jackhammers? Unreal, even though I didn’t learn anything really new. Rudy Giuliani is a drunk. (Everyone knows that.) Every person with two brain cells to rub together in the Trump inner circle knew he lost the election fair and square. (Another thing everyone knows.) Bill Barr’s testimony in particular should do damage, but won’t. The people who most need to know this aren’t paying attention. You can lead a horse to water, etc.
Imagine if you’d been one of the chumps who actually sent money for the “election defense fund.” It would be hard to admit you’d been conned. So you would stick your fingers in your ears and say NAH NAH NAH as loud as you could.
Gannett, which owns the Freep, has decreed that it wants to de-emphasize opinion journalism. Very very bad idea, that, reminiscent of the time a Knight Ridder executive told me he didn’t think people wanted restaurant reviews, but rather news about restaurants. (They want both.) He thought a critic shouldn’t talk about what they thought of the food, because after all, everyone has different taste, but rather what the decor was like, the prices, the parking situation. This would be a terrible mistake, in my opinion, because it would probably reduce the appearance of columns like these, which correctly points out that while we now know virtually no one other than the president believed the Big Lie, all of the surviving Republican candidates for governor of Michigan…do:
Earlier this month, when Michigan Radio’s Rick Pluta asked GOP candidates participating in their party’s first gubernatorial debate if they’d “accept the results of the August primary and the election in November as a fair and accurate reflection of the will of the voters,” only one committed to do so.
The rest agreed it’s too early to say whether the candidate who gets the most votes in those elections should be considered the legitimate winner.
…Now, less than two years later, impugning the legitimacy of the electoral process has become the Republican norm. The presumption is that any Democratic victory must be the product of electoral fraud, administrative error, or rigged voting machines.
This heads-I-win-tails-you-cheated mantra belies the confident attitude Michigan Republicans like to project as they approach this year’s mid-term elections. If a GOP comeback is as inevitable as GOP leaders assert, why are they so busy concocting excuses for defeat?
Exactly.
One piece of bloggage today, because I guess I’m working today after all. David Hogg grows up:
Hogg has learned that conservatives are more disciplined and proactive than liberals, and they tend to stay focused on a single goal rather than try to do everything at once. He and his fellow liberal activists too often find themselves reacting to outrages, he says, “timing the market” rather than building new political structures from the ground up. He cites conservative organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Federalist Society, and the Heritage Foundation. “Liberals are organized the way that a bunch of six-year olds doing a group project together with a bunch of crayons are,” he says. “Conservatives are organized like SEAL Team Six.”
Hogg now thinks that curbing gun violence is going to require a multi-year, three-pronged strategy: focusing on state-level activism; expanding the movement to include responsible gun owners and moderate Republicans; and changing the culture around gun ownership in the United States.
‘fraid so, kiddo. Good luck anyway.
Also, on edit: Wow, Yellowstone.
All entrances to Yellowstone National Park are temporarily closed due to this developing situation. https://t.co/cJhLykXbct
— Sean Breslin (@Sean_Breslin) June 13, 2022
Deborah said on June 13, 2022 at 2:51 pm
Why is it that it rains buckets somewhere in the west and then down here in the SW it’s dry as a bone? Drives me nuts, but that’s climate change for you, everything is to the extreme.
While I don’t think the hearings will change any MAGAs, it might encourage the vast middle to get off their butts and vote for Democrats in the midterms. The Republican leaders who still stick up for Trump after all of this is revealed are disgusting.
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Scout said on June 13, 2022 at 2:58 pm
Laurence Tribe tweeted this today:
“Today’s testimony opens a new possibility: charging Trump not only with seditious conspiracy (18 USC 2384), inciting insurrection (2383), defrauding the US (371) & obstructing a congressional proceeding (1505) but also wire fraud (18 USC 1343): fleecing ordinary citizens of $$$$$”
I haven’t had chance to watch today’s hearing yet, but am hearing plenty about it on the socials. The MAGAts who would learn something for once in their sad lives will ignore the hearings, but as long as the DOJ doesn’t I think there is a real hope for accountability. Not just for trump but the Senators and Congresscritters who aided and abetted The Big Lie & Grift.
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Deborah said on June 13, 2022 at 3:06 pm
I was able to watch the J6 hearing today on CNN live on my laptop, Julie.
I read somewhere that Bill Stepien is advising the woman who’s running to beat Liz Cheney in the primary in Wyoming. Cheney was extra nice to Stepian when she gave the closing remarks wishing him the best on the coming birth of a child. Also his video comments were very damning, so not being live didn’t make much difference, to me anyway. He wasn’t very articulate in his responses, said “you know” a lot.
There seems to be so much that can used to indict Trump already, it will be a dereliction of duty it Garland doesn’t. The big lie and the big rip off of fundraising from gullible dupes, alone would be enough, not to mention conspiring with his cronies to halt the transfer of power to Biden on Jan 6 and all that transpired as a result.
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Dorothy said on June 13, 2022 at 5:57 pm
What I wouldn’t give to have a camera strategically placed in whatever space where the TFG is watching the hearings. Do you suppose Macaroni has him in a diaper and/or bib just in case? Is there a buxom nurse nearby with appropriate meds if he starts to foam at the mouth or anything? A team of guys with a straight jacket in case he starts to spin and flail? Gee it’s fun to imagine all of these scenarios.
It’s good to hear from all of the sycophants who should have opened their mouths way before the Committee invited them for a chat. But it doesn’t make right what they enabled and pretended to appease the old fart. They will have their comeuppance eventually. Fingers crossed the Dems capitalize on all of this and do very well in the mid-terms this November.
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Jeff Borden said on June 13, 2022 at 6:50 pm
I’ve seen a couple of stories reporting tRump is so bored with his life at Mar-a-Loko he’s ready to announce for 2024 as early as July 4, despite pleas that he wait until after the midterms. Goddam attention junkie.
Neil Steinberg in the Chicago Sun-Times bursts any hope the MAGAts will be persuaded by anything including these hearings. I fear he’s correct.
https://www.everygoddamnday.com
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Mark P said on June 13, 2022 at 7:32 pm
I still have some hope that Trump will be indicted by a special grand jury in Georgia for soliciting election fraud. His phone call makes it seem pretty straightforward, but who knows. At the very least, if he is indicted there can be a perp walk. It would be so wonderful to see him in handcuffs. Conviction and jail time are too much to hope for, like a pony for Christmas, but wouldn’t that be nice?
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Sherri said on June 13, 2022 at 8:58 pm
Whether Trump runs in 2024 or not, or whether he’s indicted or not, Trumpism will still be on the ballot. Whether it’s DeSantis or some other copycat, it will be the same message: we’re the real Americans, you can’t tell us what to do, the rest of you are only tolerated if you do what we say and keep quiet.
As I’ve said here before, conservatism is about an in group whom the law protects but doesn’t bind, and an out group whom the law binds but doesn’t protect. That’s inconsistent with a democracy, of course, but that’s what they’re doing everything in their power to ensure.
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Deborah said on June 13, 2022 at 9:51 pm
This is really creepy, it’s almost like the Manchurian Candidate https://twitter.com/LvivNightingale/status/1536363609365925889
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Julie Robinson said on June 13, 2022 at 10:10 pm
If you want to get super angry, go watch What the Constitution Means to Me on Amazon Prime. I thought it was going to be about how great our Constitution is, and that would be good for Mom after watching another two hours of how TFG tried to subvert it.
No.
It is about all the ways the Constitution doesn’t protect many of us, the us being those who aren’t white and male. And some of the performer’s own back story, which is horrific.
Not the light entertainment I was seeking out for Mom, but very illuminating nonetheless.
And our son showed me 35 minutes of a group playing Dungeons and Dragons and there was another hour and 40 minutes left and it confused me and also let me know the next generation is so very different. Although, between watching that and your average special effects blockbuster, I’m guessing more brain cells are alive after the D&D.
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Jeff Gill said on June 14, 2022 at 7:31 am
Julie, you just need to roll percentile dice to hit 95 or better for your caring factor. Should you roll above, you are trapped forever in a fantasy world developed in collaboration with a group of similarly inclined paladins, thieves, and clerics. If you roll under, you can wait out the next turn and listen to learn more about where this campaign is heading.
Oh, and if you roll the over and enter the group, you’ll immediately need to roll an eight-sided three times as a trio of orcs just burst through a wooden door bound in wrought iron just behind you, which had been locked when your leader tried the latch: as a mage, your magic missiles hit on even numbers for each spell. Roll!
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Icarus said on June 14, 2022 at 9:32 am
Jeff Gill @ 10: I always took you as Lawful Good but now I think you might have evolved into Chaotic Neutral.
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Deborah said on June 14, 2022 at 2:07 pm
Turns out Stepien is even more of a weasel. First he’s working for the woman primarying Liz Cheney, that woman is a big Trumper who consistently spreads Trump’s Big Lie. Second he didn’t say anything publicly about the fact that he knew Trump lost the election and what Trump was spouting was a ridiculous huge lie. Now it comes out that the company Stepien founded has Trump’s “Save America PAC” as a client. That’s the same PAC that took $250 million from donors for the “Election Defense Fund” that never really existed.
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Peter said on June 14, 2022 at 3:29 pm
Well this is off topic, and it may be a first world problem, but I read where Amy Schneider of Jeopardy fame threw out the first pitch at Saturday’s Dodgers/Giants game, but Fox Sports instead showed Kurt Busch throwing out the first pitch – which he did last Thursday.
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Julie Robinson said on June 14, 2022 at 4:28 pm
Fox must not have liked Amy’s rainbow ruffled tutu skirt. I thought it was adorable.
Okay, Jeff and Icarus, today we had the great-nephews over and they were playing Dominion. Son and fiance play it for hours with their friends and they are “investing” in expansion card packs. Got any cute comments on that one? From what I was overhearing it sounds similarly convoluted.
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Jeff Borden said on June 14, 2022 at 6:23 pm
The way this midterm is shaping up is fucking scary. What will citizens care most about? The near violent coup that would’ve installed a mentally unstable reality TV performer who lost the popular vote by 7 million or the rising inflation and its impact on their wallets?
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Deborah said on June 14, 2022 at 6:33 pm
LB is making the first southwest salad of the season, with fresh corn off the cob, black beans, avacado, tomatoes, lettuce from the farmers market today and that fresh Mexican cheese I can never remember the name of. I may be leaving something out (red onion or scallions?). I don’t know what kind of dressing? Oh yeah, there’s some Serrano pepper in there too to spice it up. She was going to add chicken but didn’t want to crank up the stove. I’m sitting outside in the lovely late afternoon shade in Santa Fe. Meanwhile my husband in Chicago tells me it’s in the upper 90s, humid and no AC. No thanks.
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Scout said on June 14, 2022 at 6:51 pm
Deborah, that sounds lovely! Is it cotija cheese you’re thinking of?
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Deborah said on June 14, 2022 at 7:30 pm
The salad was excellent, the dressing was lime, olive oil and some of the finally diced Serrano. Yes, Scout that’s the cheese, cotija. We had it with tortilla chips on the side. LB realized that we had cilantro that she could have added. Oh well, next time. We each ate a lot but there was way more left over so she took it over to the next door neighbors, because leftover salad the next day doesn’t cut it.
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JodiP said on June 15, 2022 at 9:48 am
Deborah, the salad sounds so good! I am hosting a potluck tonight and will do something similar with quinoa and grilled vegetables. My plan for the vinaigrette is “Mexican-inspired” but I hadn’t thought to add Serrano chilies or cheese. We have feta on hand so will use that for a little cross-cultural mash-up.
Jeff @15, the prospect of Big Lie-ers running state elections is also superconcerning.
And this: an attack on a gay pride celebration in Idaho by the Patriot Front was thwarted by a person thinking it was suspicious so see allthese armed men pile into a U-Haul and called the cops.
I really, really wish we could afford to retire super early and move to Europe. I know it’s not perfect and nationalism is on the rise every where, but this is really frightening.
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Icarus said on June 15, 2022 at 10:30 am
Julie Robinson: I’m not familiar with Dominion…a quick google search tells me it’s a deck-building game. Hopefully, the skills needed translate into Real World tools somehow.
Our favorite pessimist writes:
More people might be paying attention to these hearings if it wasn’t so obvious that nothing is going to happen to anyone in a position of power. No consequences and no accountability mean most people will not invest any of their finite attention and interest to it.
-GinandTacos
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Jeff Borden said on June 15, 2022 at 10:31 am
If we were 20 years younger, we’d be looking for an escape, too. We have several friends with dual citizenship and they are eyeing the exits in anticipation of the ascent of DeathSantis or some other fascist asshole to the White House. A friend’s daughter who recently became a flight attendant already is lobbying to be based in Europe, which she thinks would be safer and more stable. My Jewish neighbor is thinking Israel, though he fears the violence there, too.
It’s hard to not to think a perfect storm is brewing. The war in Ukraine is not only driving up the cost of fuel, but will likely create horrible food shortages in poor nations, which will drive many to seek safety in the west, fueling the anti-immigrant rhetoric. Inflation is soaring around the world, but here it’s being blamed on Joe Biden. As Jodi P noted, election deniers are likely to be running election offices in several states. SCOTUS is poised not only to strike down Roe, but to throw out New York State’s rules about concealed carry of guns even as we choke on our own blood. And the pro-corporation court will stand squarely in the way of any efforts to fight climate change despite the evidence all around us that it’s getting much worse much faster than first believed.
My hopes center on the January 6 commission producing strong enough results for criminal charges against the perpetrators, but that may be like believing in leprechauns.
If you speak another language, you have options. We don’t.
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Julie Robinson said on June 15, 2022 at 10:54 am
Icarus, Dominion is intricate and played in groups, so I would say it builds memory and community skills, which are probably among those DeathSantis opposes, right? Anytime you have people getting together around a table and talking to each other while working on a project, rather than on their devices, is positive.
We finished Gaslit last night, and if you have a Starz subscription, I highly recommend it. It’s about Watergate told especially through the life of Martha Mitchell. The parallels for today are numerous, excepting of course that it’s worse today.
We only had Starz because our daughter was watching Outlander. Now that Gaslit is over we’re dropping it. I couldn’t find anything else I wanted to see. Which is like most streaming services.
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Heather said on June 15, 2022 at 10:58 am
I started reading The Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler, which is the second in a series that’s about a woman surviving as the U.S. slowly disintegrates into chaos. (Butler died before finishing the third.) It’s horribly prescient, especially about the rise of Christian theocracy.
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Mark P said on June 15, 2022 at 12:24 pm
Christofascist is the term. That’s where the trumpists are leading and a whole hell of a lot of fundamentalists are following. They have already captured the Supreme Court, so they will not be fettered by law, the Constitution, or decency. I don’t see this turning out well.
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alex said on June 15, 2022 at 3:47 pm
I came back from Chicago with freshly made Hungarian sausage and kishke from the former Meyer Deli, whatever that place is called now. So not planning cool summertime meals exactly but stuff my dad will eat. Corn salad sure sounds good though.
Amazing lightning in the skies on the way home Monday night. We arrived home about 9 PM anticipating that the storm would clobber us moments later but it veered sharply south when it got to our area and did quite a number on the southwest side of Fort Wayne but nothing at all in our area. It has been classified as a derecho.
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Deborah said on June 15, 2022 at 3:47 pm
LB is dog sitting the cutest little French bulldog and Boston terrier mix, here at the place in Santa Fe, for the day. He’s high energy and sweet and we’ve been establishing boundaries. I keep telling LB that it reminds me of when she was a baby and we tiptoed around when she finally went to sleep. This little guy doesn’t keep his eyes closed for very long. We took him on a long walk before it started getting hot to try and wear him out, that worked for a while. He’s adorable which is keeping him in good graces.
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Dorothy said on June 15, 2022 at 5:01 pm
We had a derecho come through one July when we had a house on three acres in Mount Vernon OH. Lost power for four days. Since we were on a well that is powered by electricity that meant no water, and you could not flush toilets. We could shower on campus at Kenyon for the first two days at the athletic center; then they stopped allowing that cuz power came back on campus. Thankfully a co-worker allowed us to use her shower. Sleeping seemed next to impossible in such hot weather. Restaurants didn’t have power for a few days so we could not really go out and buy food. I think we had a lot of crackers and fruit. I hope I never go through that again.
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Deborah said on June 15, 2022 at 5:09 pm
I can’t imagine what it’s like in Texas for those people without power and water in 100° heat. But no, we don’t have climate change on top of insufficient power infrastructure there. Of course not, that would involve raising taxes to fix it. They can’t have that while billionaires are voting for Republicans.
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Sherri said on June 15, 2022 at 6:24 pm
I think the Dems could organize and win this fall, but they’re afraid to do what it takes. They don’t want any part of grass roots organizing, because the grass roots is going to tell them what they don’t want to hear: you’re old, you’re out of touch, and you need to get out of the way for people who care more about saving democracy than saving bipartisanship.
Every word out of a Dem’s mouth should be about Jan 6 and the attempt to steal an election. Ask them about inflation, the answer should be yeah, it’s bad, but if our democracy fails, inflation will be even worse.
They can’t just sit back and hope enough people see the Jan 6 hearings. This isn’t Watergate and the 70s. People saw the Watergate hearings by default. They turned on their TV, and there they were. Today, people don’t turn on their TV and just watch whatever’s there. Besides, Republicans have devalued hearings, with their endless Benghazi nonsense. It all just becomes noise to normal people just trying to live their lives.
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LAMary said on June 15, 2022 at 7:29 pm
Labor day weekend 2020 it was 117 degrees more or less for three days, we had no power, and a big fire was close enough for the skies to be dark orange 24 hours a day. It looked like hell. We all piled into our vehicles and drove around using the car AC and charging our phones for a few hours. I drove north on I-5 and got to a lake where there was a Trump boat parade. That just added to the terrible state of mind I was in.
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Mark P said on June 15, 2022 at 8:13 pm
It has been very hot here in NW Georgia. I have seen 101 on my car temp display. We’re supposed to have highs in the 90’s for the next 10 days, except for a few around 100. Plus high humidity.
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Julie Robinson said on June 15, 2022 at 8:38 pm
98° today, 98° tomorrow, 98° Friday. Good swimming weather. For the first time in my entire life I have a tan on my legs.
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Sherri said on June 15, 2022 at 11:34 pm
Low 60s and cloudy here. It’s been dreary all spring.
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Dexter Friend said on June 16, 2022 at 1:34 am
The older I get the worse I do with heat. I can’t complain yet, as I only lost power briefly and my window unit ACs are cooling well. Years ago when I lived in Monterey I learned that that climate was called a Mediterranean climate. I loved it. It only was very hot in the whole month of October. I went to a Giants game at Candlestick Park and the denizens wore parkas in July for night games. Winds would gust through the aisles and shower us with peanut shucks and shells, stinging the eyeballs. But in Monterey, a light jacket was worn as I explored the tide pools and observed the creatures. I would have stayed there but home was Indiana, you know how it is.
My quest for a “kinda-sorta” good used truck is stalled. Lots of trucks for sale but all are “too good” for me. I drive hoopdee trucks too, not just hoopdee cars.
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Jeff Gill said on June 16, 2022 at 7:38 am
Icarus, I’m trying hard to hold onto Chaotic Neutral these days, but I have evil thoughts about certain persons that tempt me further down that chart.
Speaking of which, and I’ve typed about this before here, but I have to vent somewhere and my wife gets near despondent hearing me out — the Trump post-election grift is one island in a vast, seething, erupting archipelago of scammers out there, most of them aimed like a well-tuned laser at aging, elderly, mildly confused & generally anxious citizens, most of whom don’t get around much anymore, are finding their preferred cell phone getting bricked by new technology, their TV remote ever harder to make sense of (my sister has a whole system with our mom with a universal remote they bought with duct tape swaddling much of it, and bright red nail polish highlighting the correct buttons), and their longtime subscriptions are dwindling from print into the near-inaccessible tablets and desktops they dimly comprehend.
But their land line, which they will not give up, and that they barely can hear on, is — along with the mailbox & the packets that arrive in it daily — a daily minefield of active threats they can’t see as such, since they are ALL masquerading as the only way to protect and serve and save and love what we all used to love, until [cue music] things started to change [crashing chord].
I spend more time protecting my father-in-law from scams I can’t fully shut down than I do caring for his needs directly. He MUST see and handle the daily mail (he has NO idea how much I throw out as it is) and he tells me he doesn’t answer the land line, and doesn’t when I’m there, but he has given up on the new flip phone (his old was 3G, he could send and receive texts on it, but now, it’s a mess and he’s less able to master tech than he was seven years ago) and picks it up when I’m away. And then checks get written.
We’ve taken the keys and the license, and my wife has POA on the accounts; he still writes some of his bills and puts them out so the flag goes up (yes that still happens some places), and if I completely take his checkbook away, he’s lost the last piece of tending his own needs he can do. But the scams are relentless, packaged in every political, cultural, and religious garb you can image, and right now the American Legion magazine is the least noxious thing I let slip through the cordon sanitaire, and it’s full of ads to send money to various ring-a-ding causes.
Thank you. I’ll try to not do that again for another three months or so.
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Mark P said on June 16, 2022 at 8:57 am
Jeff, I feel for you. Same thing happened to my mother. When she died she had years and years in a subscription to some damned magazine that kept sending her notices to renew. Once she insisted on writing a check to some scammer from Canada who called and sweet-talked her, even when I told her it was a scam. Sometimes I wish there was a hell, so I could see them when I go there.
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Julie Robinson said on June 16, 2022 at 9:48 am
Jeff, I’m so sorry. I remember visiting my great-aunt, and when the phone rang she spoke at great length with the caller, then trotted off to get her credit card for a golf magazine subscription. It was the first sign of the dementia which ended her life. Probably every single one of us here has a similar story.
My mom gave up both her land line and flip phone when we moved here because of technology. She’s so naturally skeptical that she just slammed the phone down on anyone she didn’t know, and when her computer does “something funny” she brings it to me.
Speaking of eldsters, our daughter got a call from a parishioner Tuesday night who was in pain and wanted a ride to the urgent care center. Long story short she ended up in the hospital and it looks like a screw in a replacement hip has broken off. Sarah was with her until they admitted her at 4 am, then had to make several trips back and forth to get her meds, care for her dog, etc. Afterwards Mom said she apologized for stalling on getting her out of her big old two story house and close to us. She realizes now she could no longer handle living by herself. Major breakthrough!
Sherri, your weather report is why I am here. My mental health has been so much better since I can get a sunbath every day.
Deborah and Little Bird, your salad was in our paper today–they called it Elote Salad. We made potato salad yesterday but I’d like to try it.
Saw my first cannabis ad in the paper today.
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Scout said on June 16, 2022 at 12:22 pm
Jeff Gill, that was so eloquent and unfortunately for so many of us, relevant. My Dad died last year of dementia and as a liberal he was never bombarded with any of that right wing save the country marketing stuff, but he did fall for watch scams and subscriptions to online stuff he then didn’t remember how to navigate. At then end he only was allowed his Kindle because he managed to ruin his iPhone and iPad. My Mom does pretty well with tech but every time I see her I have to trouble shoot something with her phone or her remotes or her laptop. It’s hell getting old and in the digital age it’s even harder, I think.
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Jeff Borden said on June 16, 2022 at 12:55 pm
The 92-year-old father of a good friend sends thousands of dollars annually to a right wing grifter named Dennis Prager. He’s convinced there’ll be nothing left of his savings soon. It’s very sad.
Meanwhile, the revelations about how deeply Ginni Thomas was involved in the coup attempt are deeply troubling. It’s beyond belief Old Clarence was unaware of his wife’s seditious activity. SCOTUS is truly a hot mess without a trace of ethics or honesty.
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Deborah said on June 16, 2022 at 1:10 pm
I have these issues when I try to cancel something I ordered on Amazon for various reasons. They make it impossible to find the buttons to click to get to where you need to be. I figured it out and now I can do it easily, but the first time was frustrating and took way too long. Another time I ordered a coat directly from the company that makes them, It came too big and when I tried to return it I had to go through a huge rigamaroll on line, I had to finally call them, I really like the coat and just wanted to exchange it for a smaller size which they clearly said on their website that you could do. It took me 3 days to get it done. I got the right sized coat eventually and I still love it, after 3 or 4 years of wearing it. I don’t know if these things happen to me because I’m a befuddled oldster or they’re done on purpose to discourage people from canceling or returning orders.
Every once in a while I get a scam call that I play along with for a bit to make the caller think I’m actually going to fall for it. They usually end up hanging up on me. I usually never answer a call that has a number I don’t recognize but occasionally I goof up thinking it’s a number I know.
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Sherri said on June 16, 2022 at 3:08 pm
I try to be patient with small businesses these days, recognizing that many are short-staffed, but I have my limits.
You may recall that I remodeled my kitchen just before the pandemic. In an episode of decision fatigue, I bought the extended warranty on my kitchen appliances; it was a relatively small price compared to the overall amount I was spending on those appliances, and I temporarily forgot why those are a bad idea.
Now, there’s a problem with my fancy refrigerator. It works fine, but the display panel doesn’t show anything, and the buttons on it are non-responsive. More annoyance than anything else, but I want to get it fixed. I call the number for the third-party warranty company. I wait on hold forever, finally give up and figure out how to navigate their website and file a claim despite the lack of useful info there.
Claim process proceeds, and they come back to me with a repair company. This company has terrible Yelp reviews, but I try anyway. It takes multiple calls to get them, because they don’t return calls. I finally schedule an appointment, and they don’t show. I call them up, saying where are you, they say, let me call you back. No return call.
I sit on hold with the warranty company for a while again, decide this is all pointless, sunk costs and all that, and call a new repair company myself, and I’ve got an appointment scheduled next month. This company at least doesn’t have a slew of Yelp reviews complaining that they don’t show up and never return phone calls!
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Julie Robinson said on June 16, 2022 at 4:08 pm
Time to read the fine print and see if they have to reimburse you, Sherri. Of course that would probably go about as well as arranging the repair. Did you use a credit card? If so, it’s worth a call.
The hearing room got hazy from all the smoking guns today.
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