On the Phone With Customer Relations

Should I be capitalizing "With" in the title? I can never remember. Where exactly did I put my AP style book from Mass Comm 102? Anyway...

We considered buying a new fridge last night, but we decided it would be wiser to save about $400 and have the current fridge repaired, which is still very nice, BTW. In looking at new iceboxes, we noticed something; There's not much difference between a $900 fridge and a $1,400 fridge. If you pay an extra $500 (even $1,000) you get the following:
•heavier doors
•digital push buttons for controlling the temperature instead of those little twisty dials
•a cheap plastic piece of crap for storing 9 cans of soda (I can't tell you the number of times I've needed to quickly cool a 9-pack.)
•door alarms and locks (A great feature if you're trying to push your daughter into an eating disorder!)
•little slide thingies on all the crisper drawers (So your kids can just screw up all your produce when you're not looking)
•shelves that slide out, because you're too good to extend your arms to their full length like those crackers across the tracks
•the satisfaction of knowing that you have enough money to throw it away on all of the above

And freezers... there's essentially no difference between one freezer and another. It's like these manufacturers aren't even trying anymore. I need to see some innovation to spend the extra money. How about a snowball maker for mid-summer snowball fights? Or a frozen margarita dispenser? Or a cryo drawer for freezing your pets until modern medical science can come up with a cure for "swallowed a whole pack of firecrackers, then hiccuped and blew up his colon?"

So I tried Sears national customer service hotline again. They reviewed the case, then put me on hold for about 72 hours. When they came back, they connected me with National Customer Relations. ("I did not have customer relations with that woman.") I was informed that my case had been deemed NCR-worthy. A lady named Christy tried to contact the general manager of the Galleria store, who was conveniently on vacation. Every time we try to reach someone over there, they are on vacation. I think that's their pat answer when they don't want to answer the phone, kind of like the standard McDonald's line, "I'm sorry sir, but the shake machine is broken." I'm glad whatever company makes those shake machines isn't in an important industry like traffic lights or airplane landing gear.

The manager's trip to Cabo (or, let's face it, Branson, MO) worked in our favor. Christy contacted the District Manager. We will hear something back by next Tuesday, hopefully sooner. Until then, we have to live with the WLC (world's largest cooler.)

Three words of advice: Don't do drugs. Stay in school. And don't shop at Sears.

Seacrest out.