Warrantable Brain Damage

It’s hard to believe that we have been living in our new house for a little over a month, and we are still having trouble getting the builder to fix defects. I was surprised when we actually got a call from our Warranty Specialist, Bungle D. F. Winklemeyer, at 8:31 on the 31^st of December. You might think that’s awfully specific for something that happened a couple of weeks ago, but I always remember answering calls that wake me up with an “Omigod, who died?” heart attack. He wanted to take a look at the crack in our tub next Wednesday. I made the mistake of having plans already, and daring to ask him to reschedule. It’s a little like not being ready when the waiter appears, telling him you still need a couple of minutes and then waiting around for half an hour before he gets back to you again.

I called on Monday, the 9^th of January, as Bungle suggested. I even called during his favorite time period to make his calls, between 8:30 and 9am. I left a message. I called again in the afternoon and left another message. I called a third time the next morning, and still got his voice mail. He called about an hour later, not to reschedule, but to tell me that he had too much on his schedule and my case was being given to Super Mega Warranty Despot, Fearsome Harpy Queen of Sewage Systems (I’m told it’s an honorary title, she’s just a figurehead). So I call her and she tells me that crack in my tub is cosmetic, even though she’s never seen it. Cosmetic!? There's a crack in my new tub in my new house!

Then she tells me we shouldn’t have signed off on the sacred, “This House is Perfect,” no takesies backsies contract, which we never had an opportunity to do, seeing as we bought this house from a Flipper. And no, I don’t mean the super intelligent, ocean-dwelling mammal. This kind of Flipper is more closely related to the vile and dim-witted bottom-feeder, the sea cucumber. Actually, I take that back, and apologize to fans of sea cucumbers everywhere, this kind of Flipper is more closely related to the gelatinous, oozing, brownish green mess that sea cumbers vomit on a regular basis to rid them of parasites.

Queen Harpy calls me back the next day, to address an issue that was on the same request. “I spoke with you yesterday, do you remember me?” I answered, “Just because I bought one of your houses doesn’t mean I’m brain damaged.” (I blame my lapse in judgment on sunstroke.) Of course, they couldn’t do anything about the request that she for some reason didn’t address when she’d talked to me a mere 16 hours earlier.

As with any warranty process they’ve made the procedure for obtaining any remedy so convoluted and difficult that you’d rather endure colon hydrotherapy while completing your 1040A and listening to American Idol Rejects' Greatest Off-key Hits, than spend another moment trying to get what you were promised. And when the list of people and corporate entities I want to sue is longer than a receipt from Best Buy, litigation seems as laborious and futile as picking ticks off a dead horse. Maybe all I really need is to amass a huge Blog audience and then reveal the name of the odious, devious, depraved shyster builders. I’m sure Sweetface would stick by my side through the resulting libel suit.