Sears that is..... NOT! Since that oh so clever piece of 5th Avenus tripe was shoveled down our throats in bad advertisements back in the 80's, Walmart has far surpassed Sears as the place America shops. Not that shopping at Walmart is any better, but I thought I would point that out.
Back in my late teens, I applied for a Sears credit card. They turned me down siting my lack of credit. At the time I thought to my self that this was some kind of Catch 22 statement. You have to have credit to get credit. Right, just like you have to be working at a studio to be allowed to join the union and you have to be a member of the union to work at the studio first. Get it? I sure did. It was Sears (and Warner Brothers or 20th Century Fox or Universal's) way of saying "fuck you".
I swore back at the tender age of 19 to never set foot in a Sears again, nor buy another product they peddled. I did pretty good with that promise to myself for close to 25 years. Then we moved to Florida.
Sue's dad Marty had a Sears credit card (who of that generation did not?). He instructed us to march straight down to the local Sears in Lake County and buy us some appliances for our new home. We did so dutifully.
We came home (well, actually they delivered it) with a fridge, stove, dish washer and a washer and dryer. The fridge didn't fit properly in the kitchen, so it went back and credit was issued. I took that opportunity to go to Lowes and buy a different fridge. The fridge has worked fine since the day it was purchased over 5 years ago. (as a side note here, the dish washer also broke down the first few months we owned it, it however remained with the house in Florida along with the stove when we sold it.
The washer and dryer are another story. The washer broke down constantly, almost since the day it arrived. The dryer followed suit a few months later. Both of them probably broke down collectively over 15 times. Sears finally replaced the dryer 2 years ago. The washer is another story.
We paid about $1500 for the washer and dryer. Over the ensuing 5 years, we paid close to $1000 in service contracts with Sears. Our washer died a final, slow and painful death sometime in December of 03. Sears refused to repair or replace it as we had let the service contract lapse a few weeks before.
Now Sears believes they are within their legal rights to fuck us over that way. And frankly, they are technically within their legal rights to say "fuck you" to us. But from our perspective they sold us a pile of shit that constantly broke down. They should have replaced it 5 service trips back. It would have been the moral and ethical thing to do. But they didn't, they chose to take another road.
Our service contract renewal was almost $300. I refused to pay them one more dime for anything, let alone this contract. Not to mention we didn't have a spare $300 for a service contract for a washer that had broken down 8 times in 3 years.
Sue got her tax refund a week or so ago. She said "Let's go buy a new washer and dryer with it." I said "Hell yeah!"
So we loaded up the truck and we drove to Rogers, (Lowes that is, Bentonville, Walmart Corporate). Well, the next thing you know the washer we had picked out the week before on sale was no longer on sale (nor was the dryer). So we ended up getting just the washing machine. I need to note here that the dryer that Sears had given us to replace the pile of shit we bought originally in Florida had broken down on us 6 months after they delivered it and took the other pile of shit dryer away. That was why we thought we needed a new dryer.
Turns out we didn't need a new dryer after all. Barb Dunham swore to Sue on pain of death that we could probably repair the old/new dryer. She even gave us instructions on how to do so. Sue and I attempted to repair it and couldn't even get the back panel off let alone repair it. So Barb said she'd come over and fix it on Sunday. A miracle occured when Sue went to show Barb what the dryer was/or wasn't doing. The damn thing came on and stayed on and works now. We must have banged on the right thing when attempting to get the back off Thursday night. Who the hell knows or cares, I just know I have a washer and dryer now and I am fucking thrilled beyond words.
But I digress, sort of. I so hate Sears now that I am at a point where I actually have a vendetta against them. I not only have renewed my vow of 31 years ago, I also am going to figure out how to sue them if it takes every last breath in my body to do so.
I made the Lowes delivery guys put the crappy broken Sears washer on the side of the garage. They were supposed to take the broken one away, it was part of the delivery deal. But I wanted the evidence of Sears foul play to still exist until such time as I could sic lawyers on them.
Ok, this had an epilog when I first puiblished it last night. Now it no longer exsists. I'll paraphrase what I recall writing for your sake. It went something like this:
So that's the Sears story Ky. I wish for Sears that they go the way of Woolworths. Knowing the greed and lust for global domination of Walmart executives, they will eventually. I have no fear of that. They are next year's Kmart reorganization waiting to happen. I wish for Sears nothing less than what they did to me.
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