January Odds and Ends

Matt had asked Lindy (who goes to M.C.) to prom and she responded.

(He had used the same technique that Abby used to ask Landon last year...give a pizza and say if the answer is yes, eat the pizza and return the box, if the answer is no, eat the box and return the pizza :)

When I ran outside to get pictures of our roof one evening so we could get a bid for our shingles I caught a gorgeous sunset...

We had a couple of days in January where we were well into the negatives!

We had three days in a row where school was delayed two hours because of the extreme temps.

Here's another bit of a long story...

One night, our dryer went out.

Andy tried to see what he could do but ended up calling a technician from Darrell's (where we purchased the machine a couple of years ago) 

After examining it he told us there was nothing wrong with the dryer...it was a problem in the wall.

He told us we need to replace the outlet.  He told Andy what to buy and do.

Andy spent quite a bit of time making the repair.  Matt was helping him and when he went to push the dryer back into place when they were done, it arced.

It created this mess with the exhaust vent and the stubbed gas line.

It was quite dramatic...when Andy came out into the living room to go turn off the breaker, he smelled strongly of "burn".

We had more than one professional tell us that Matt was extremely lucky to be alive.

Oddly enough, the next day I saw the Darrell's repairman in the parking lot at Panda Express as I drove into Macey's.  I stopped on my way out and showed him the picture and asked his opinion.

He said to call an electrician.

We had someone come out and fix whatever was going on in the wall and he said that basically, the whole machine had been live when Matt had moved it.

Unfortunately, now there was a problem with the dryer.  It had shorted when it arced.

So, we called the repairman back and after checking it out he said that we needed to replace the something or other "harness"...that he would order the part and come out and install it as soon as it came in.  I have a very clear memory of him saying to me, "Fortunately, it is all under warranty and you won't have to pay a thing."  Great!

The next week, when he came to fix it, Andy was home and he said the same thing to him.

He fixed it, it worked and all was well...

...until, we got a bill from Darrell's a couple of weeks later for $400...what?!?!

I called them and explained the situation.  There was a bunch of back and forth but the gist is that our repairman says he never told us it was under warranty.

We couldn't believe we were going through this now on top of all the other lies and money lost on the addition.

Why would he say he never said that when he said it very clearly on two separate occasions?

I called and spoke to a woman of authority.

She was sorry but said basically there wasn't anything she could do since it truly wasn't under warranty.

I told her I understood it was our word against his and that we would go ahead and just pay the bill since that seemed to be our only choice but I wanted them to know what a frustration it was.

I told her of the issues we had had when we ordered the machines two years earlier.

There was a big, ridiculous kerfuffle with their delivery man...it had been super frustrating.

The owner and his wife came out and delivered and installed the machines after I expressed our frustrations with the situation over the phone.

To have a second issue was the last straw for us and we would no longer be dealing with Darrell's.

I kept my cool and, again, Vickie was professional and told me she would pass along our story to the owner and let him know the problem, but to yes, go ahead and just pay the bill :(

Arghhhh!