The good news is that the air conditioner repairman arrived yesterday morning at the dot of eight.
Of course, the thing was working at the time (as it had not yet gotten horribly hot), and he tried to convince me there was nothing wrong with it. ("Well, did it FEEL like it was 90 degrees in the house?") Eventually, he discovered faulty capacitors that were dropping power just when it's needed the most. As the unit is only three years old, the parts were still under warranty - but I did have to pay for labor. OK, the guy has to make a living.
The news was not so good about the fridge. The estimated cost for that was nearly $700.
So I'm shopping for a new one, which I've never done before. The one that died was given to me by my grandfather when he moved to Florida. The previous one had come with the apartment I'd lived in for 14 years. And that's it.
I had a lot to learn.
So I blitzed the west San Fernando Valley yesterday afternoon, dragging poor Megan to six stores, beginning with Waadt Appliances in Van Nuys, looping down to Fry's in Woodland Hills, Lowe's in Canoga Park, Warehouse Discount Center and Sears in Northridge and ending up at Best Buy in Porter Ranch. (She was a pretty good sport about it and kind of got into it, picking out a Kenmore she feels we HAVE to get -- even though it doesn't quite fit in the space we have available for it. Cute.)
And last night I was on the websites of some of these stores and every other one I could think of. I now have a pretty good idea of what I'm looking for.
"You should get on the Sears website and find out where their nearest outlet store is," advised my sister, who is in the middle of an add-on that includes an updated kitchen. "I only found out about that after I'd bought all my appliances. You could save as much as $1,000 on it."
Well, the Sears outlet is all the way down in Santa Ana, 50 miles away. And as $1,000 is pretty much all I want to pay, I'm not sure the savings I'd get would be worth the hassle of the trip.
Megan has a playdate this morning. I'm returning to Waadt and WDC to take another look at some of the "scratch and dent" models that were on sale. My dream: I can find a bargain and have it delivered TODAY.
Wish me luck.
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