Gas
A short while ago, I had a phone call from the coop management office. Tomorrow — yes, tomorrow! — the plumbers and gas line inspectors will be arriving to do their approval stuff on the gas lines. This means that shortly I will have gas again and will have to re-teach myself how to use my stove. (Stove? What is this large item taking up space in my kitchen? What are these dials, what do they do, what–?)
Car Warranty
A call from Albany (New York, not Georgia). That same tireless lady who, according to the phone IDs, zips around this country like Superwoman, informed me for the maybe thirtieth time that my car warranty is about to lapse so I’d better call to…oh, you know.
Home Depot
I’ve reported how Home Depot is on my personal boycott list. Indeed, I’ve mentioned it so many times I’m only going to give you the last link.
But now, thanks to this New York Times article I plucked out of the pages yesterday — “More Than 190,000 Ceiling Fans Are Recalled After Blades Spin Off” — I can tell you the full do-not-shop-at-Home-Depot story without good-humoredly worrying about a defamation lawsuit.
Years ago, one of my cousins, Thomas, called to ask my advice about where he should shop for a new bathtub.
Since both of us live in New York, I recommended the late and genuinely lamented George Taylor, a unique shop down in TriBeCa where I always got my fixtures. I ended my recommendation by saying, “But wherever you go, do not buy it from Home Depot!”
I told him why: once, when I had a new refrigerator delivered (and the old one removed), I got into a chat with the delivery guys, who also delivered for Home Depot. “Don’t buy from them,” one of them said. “Everything they sell is inferior.” He told me of the many times he and his partner had to pick up and return new Home Depot appliances because the things hadn’t worked properly.
I told Thomas that story. (I do like reinforcing recommendations with illuminating true tales.) And it was important to warn him about Home Depot because Thomas, although a long-time New Yorker, comes originally from Wisconsin where, apparently, Home Depot is the only, thus, default, store. It’s where everybody gets their stuff.
A couple of months later, Thomas called me. He said, “You’re going to love this.” He is a multi-tasker, i.e., is always so busy it’s hard from him to plan a trip to lower Manhattan for a bathtub so…Despite my warnings, he got on the Home Depot site, found a bathtub and ordered it by phone.
Thomas then lived in a fourth-floor walkup apartment. He got the call from the delivery guy saying, “We’re downstairs, but maybe you should come down and look at the bathtub before we [lug it up four flights of stairs].”
Thomas went downstairs. At the curb was the truck, and a delivery guy standing outside it. Delivery guy said, “You’d better take a look at the bathtub. It’s got a crack in it.”
Thomas returned the bathtub.
Moral of the story: boycott Home Depot because it’s a model for unethical corporate behavior, because its founder gives $$$ to Donald Trump and because it sells crap.