The Stove

99.9% of the time, we have excellent luck but when we don’t . . it’s so frustrating. I know . . we all have this kind of stuff happen. It’s not serious illness or worse. In the grand scheme of things, this is nothing but today . . ugh!

I knew yesterday we were getting the run around from Lowe’s. The delivery guys showed up today. This is not the stove we bought and paid for. At this point, I suppose it doesn’t matter how or why it happened but the best we can figure out (because facts are hard to come by), either we bought a stove that someone else had bought or they sold the stove we bought to someone else. Also apparently they found this stove stuck in the back, no box, the same model but an older version, sitting in the back somewhere and they brought us this one. That would have been fine except (1) the propane conversion kit was missing and (2) the left front leg was missing, which could have been fixed but the metal plate it screws into was bent so that the screw could not be inserted.

Vince called Hotpoint, talked to a nice guy and he said he could send us a new metal plate and leg but the propane conversion kit was expensive and he recommended sending it back but the delivery guys said “keep it til this is resolved”. So . . it sits in the basement garage.

I talked to a Lowe’s manager while Vince called corporate (like ANYONE cares!). What we’ve been told and I’ll believe it when it happens, is that a brand new stove will arrive at Lowe’s on Tuesday. At one point, he said it would be delivered Wednesday and within the same conversation, he said “it will be delivered as soon as possible”. How hard is it to do something right?

I told the manager .. I understand making mistakes. I understand if one salesman sold it and forgot to mark it as sold and then another salesman sold it to us . . whatever by you all knew this yesterday when you were lollygagging about telling me when the stove would be delivered but never did anyone tell us the truth, which is . . the stove we bought is no longer available to be delivered.

That was incident #1.

Incident #2 is that Vince’s car was scheduled for repairs on Tuesday (compressor replaced). They told us to bring it in Tuesday morning around 8, which we did. They were planning to have it back to us on Tuesday. Nope . . Friday they called and said it was ready. No big deal – other people have problems bigger than ours. We have an extra vehicle. Vince and I were out in the pickup when they called and said it was ready so we went by to get it. I drove the Honda back and it didn’t seem very cool to me. The car had been sitting with the windows up and it was 96 degrees so I wasn’t too worried about it. When we got home, Vince asked if it was cool. I said “I wasn’t real impressed.” He said he would drive it and see what he thought. He was gone for a while so I figured he had gone back to the shop. Yep. There was something wrong so they fixed it.

Just when things can’t get any worse .. hornworms found my tomatoes. I was so sure I had outsmarted them . . buckets. They have to climb up 5 gallon buckets. They did! Found three of the little critters munching on my plants today.

While we were in town Vince wanted to get the hookups for the gas stove. He now knows what size connections he needs. First, we went to the Lowe’s in Carthage (no the one where we bought the stove). They didn’t have the parts. Then we went to Home Depot. Nope . . they had some but not all – not enough for Vince to even bother buying what they had. We went to a local hardware store. Not only did they have a live human that was available to help Vince find the parts he needed, they had everything.

OK . . that’s all off my chest. Now I can cross stitch!