Once upon a time, the customer used to be right.

Ahhh…what a difference a day makes; it allows the nut inside to cool down a bit so stock can be taken of what matters.

Friday dawned as one should when there’s no work and no carpool duty. I got to enjoy my coffee instead of spilling it down the front of my shirt rushing around. I got to scan the newspaper and not learn anything I didn’t already know because I’d heard it on my car radio.

And then I got to drive my car down the hill to finally have it serviced. Finally. I picked up another coffee at a non-Starbucks joint and proceded to walk back up the hill to begin my day. I wasn’t too surprised to figure out that it is possible to walk up an incline that averages about 15 degrees holding a cup of coffee, occasionally taking a sip, and actually look stupid. No one would do that but me. What a dork. But I walked the distance in about 25 minutes and got my exercise in for the day.

And then all hell broke loose.

Since I was in a “take care of business” type of mood, I’d decided to check in with the authorized service provider we were told to use for our television which is just barely into its extended warranty. We’ve had it for exactly three years and purchased the extension through Best Buy where we bought the LG TV.

So let me back up here.

A bright red stripe about 1.5″ wide that extends from the top to the bottom of the left side of the screen appeared the day before Thanksgiving. Of course I got on the LG website to try and trouble shoot thinking that it may not be quite the big deal. I got out the owner’s manual, too, thinking I could learn something there.

Uh. No.

So the pleasant service guy showed up the Tuesday after Thanksgiving after I called AGAIN because they never called back after the first call. That should have been my warning.

The nice service man said that he’d check about whether parts and service OR a replacement television was in order. Honestly, I didn’t care. I just wanted to not have the red stripe on the screen. OR the pinkish, whitish, greyish conglomeration of tech-snow interference that conveniently did its thang while the service guy was here and thank you very much. For twenty minutes it snowed. Pink.

He said he’d call as soon as he got word on how to proceed. And he did, the very next day saying that parts were to be ordered. They’d come from the Right Coast, take about two weeks to get here, they’d come to collect the TV, install the parts, then keep it a couple of days to make sure everything was fine.

Totally groovy. I was feeling sooooooo efficient.

Just to convince you I’m calm, I waited two weeks and two WHOLE days before I called to check and see about the parts since the authorized people hadn’t called me.

The woman who answered the phone is now my mortal enemy. Her not really connected to this planet attitude and cavalier response about “the parts not being ordered yet” sent me completely through the roof. Her annoying, “Ma’am.” interrupting my request for her to repeat the offending information sealed the deal. She blamed the entire thing on Best Buy saying they didn’t have our information in the blah-blah-bla-dee-dah something or other. And she was, I think, a tad offended when I suggested to her that it was blatantly bad business practice to let something sit unresolved. She had no answer when I questioned her about just how long she’d wait before calling us to say that nothing had been done to service our TV after they’d told us it would be taken care of.

She didn’t like me. She really didn’t like me after 10 minutes of listening to me. But I’ll bet her dislike of me doesn’t approach my less than enthusiastic attitude about her prissy self.

So then I called Best Buy. Or should I say I punched in the number and several hundred others until I actually spoke to a human. I’ll spare you the details. But I did end up with a Manager who did tell me that the authorized people were having trouble getting the parts. Okay, so sure. That story was totally close to the crap the authorized chick on the phone told me. Liar. Great. So I asked the Manager when I might expect to get the parts. Sadly, she didn’t have that information. That maybe in 24-48 hours, I might be able to have that information. Mind you — 24-48 hours and two business days are not the same thing. It was Friday for goodness sakes. Puh-leeeeze.

So I called LG who told me that since everybody was pissing around, I should expect, demand, get a replacement TV. Okay, so the guy didn’t exactly say “pissing around,” but still. So I called Best Buy again, and after speaking with a few other people, got Kayla the Manager on the phone who sounded less than cheerful, in fact, quite resigned when she got on the line with,” Hello Kelly” and I told her what LG had told me. Like she really wanted to hear it.

And then I asked to speak to her Supervisor, Amber, who initiated our conversation with a verbal download of the day’s events so I’d know that she knew what she thought I’d expect her to know to be in the know. Yanno?

But all she could tell me is that it looked like the parts had been ordered.

And I told her that although we’ve purchased many, many things from Best Buy over the years, I was done. That had we purchased the TV from Fry’s, the service people would have taken it off the wall for us so that the MoH and I wouldn’t have had to do it. We are just not quite inclined to do those kinds of things. But we managed to pull the fist full of wires and cables far enough out of the wall to allow the TV to sit on the console below it and reattach it to its stand. Very. Scary. And Oh how I just can’t wait to put it back up there if the damn thing ever gets fixed.

Good thing we have muscles. Feh.

The TV ordeal took a couple of hours out of my Friday. But the good thing about it was that I got a lot of housework done while I was on hold which made it easier to put up the Christmas decorations later in the day.

I’m going to wait until the television is fixed (at the rate we’re going it should be sometime in February…) to write my letters commending the employees of Best Buy who know exactly how to say all the right things in the correct fashion. They’re so well trained. It’s too bad that the content of their comments is worthless. I’ll find a pithy way to extend that particular gem of information.

I’m thinking their goal would be to keep me in a state of suspended animation until the extended warranty time is up. Then they won’t have to do anything about the TV. After all, we already got raked over the coals because we purchased ours so long ago they only cost a fraction of what we paid — one quarter the amount we paid, actually.

So heed my warning if you’re headed out to purchase appliances or electronics this holiday season. Ask lots of questions about the warranties and extended warranties. If we hadn’t purchased the extended warranty, we’d be S.O.L. on our TV right now. LG said had it still been on warranty with them, they’ve have replaced it.

Of course we have a nice Sony in the bedroom that’s years older and has never had a single problem.

So happy shopping, guys!