While all this stuff was going on with the house being scaffolded and painted (I’m still reveling in the fact that they’re gone!), our refrigerator decided to spring a leak. In back. Soaked and damaged the wood floor before we had any clue that there was a problem. Called our insurance company, an adjuster came out. Yup. Get Sears out here, get it fixed. The floor is old enough that the general wood style used is no longer made, so we’re looking at replacing the whole floor. Maybe. So, we call Sears. Can’t get a guy out for a week and a half. Sigh. Ok. Schedule it. The day is finally here, and the repairman shows up. Because the floor is wood and the fridge is heavy, something is needed to protect the floor when the appliance is pulled out. No got. No? No. The repairman’s regular truck was in the shop, so he didn’t have all his stuff. Nothing to put on the floor to protect it. Sigh. He says he’ll have his truck back later that day, and arranges for himself or someone else to come out the next day. Fine.

The next day comes along, and when the repairman is in the area he calls. The primary contact number (for reasons I don’t know) is Dave’s home office number, but Dave was on the phone. He knew the call came in, but he couldn’t end the call he was on. About three minutes later the repairman calls again on the same line. Dave was still on the phone. The guy left a message, saying that since we weren’t there (!) we’d have to reschedule. What? Um, how about calling the secondary phone number you have, which I would have answered? Grr. Dave called back just a few minutes after the second time the repairman called, and he was on his way to his next call, which took him way out of the area. We’ll have to call Sears to schedule a new appointment.

Poor Dave was so frustrated that he didn’t do it for a day or two. Then he called Sears again, and finally got through their horrid phone system to someone to reschedule. It’ll be another week and a half! Egads.

So, finally all this time has gone by, and the appointed day arrives. Again. The bell rings, it’s a repairman from Sears, and he even has a proper, tool-filled truck out there in the drive. And lo and behold, he even has a widget to slide the fridge onto to protect the floor. Though once we got back there, one wonders why we bothered. The floor is ruined, much worse than the water damage in front of the thing. So, the guy replaces the plastic hose that broke with a new one, puts everything away, and is gone in like 20 minutes.

All that for a 20 minute service call.

Well, at least they’ve been out, and fixed the problem. Talked to our insurance agent. He wished the guy had replaced the plastic tubing with copper, but other than that, he’s satisfied. He likes the photos of the floor and the back of the fridge that I emailed to him. He’ll be coming by on Friday to pick up the parts, and drop off the repair estimate. Looks like we will be getting that new oak floor in the kitchen. And since it was a problem with the refrigerator, the insurance company will be going after Sears to get our deductible back, so there’s hope that we won’t have any out of pocket expense for this at all! Wouldn’t that be cool?