Ain't Technology Grand?

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My fridge broke last week. On Thursday. At 3 pm.

Thankfully, we have a smaller fridge in our garage. Double thankfully, we have the extended warranty that expires August 15, 2012.

So I mistakenly thought it would be a simple matter of a phone call to get a tech out on Friday to get it fixed.

HaHa! Silly Shannon.

I called the first company that the service contract gave me. They promised that they would come out and fix it on Friday, between 12-5.

I mistakenly thought that matter was solved.

HaHa! Silly Shannon.

I canceled the cleaning service we had coming out on Friday. I moved all of my frozen/refrigerated foods to the garage. What didn't fit, I put in my neighbor's fridge.

And then I waited, mistakenly thinking my fridge would be fixed in 24 hours.

HaHa! Silly Shannon.

Word of advice - Coastline Appliance out of Huntington Beach is NOT the way to go. Here's my review of them.

The tech showed up, poked around the fridge, and then turned to me and said "Yup, it's broken."

I knew that, dude.

But he wasn't done. "So I'll turn in the paperwork on Monday and we'll get it fixed next Thursday."

Okay, no. Just no.

I very nicely explained to him that there were three problems with his plan:

One, as a diabetic, I need a working fridge to keep my insulin cold.
Two, as a mother with two small children, I need a working fridge to keep their milk readily accessible.
Three, and perhaps most importantly, I'm having a baby on Thursday.

The tech said, "Huh. Well, okay. I wouldn't do any shopping if I were you." And LEFT.

My husband was home and was able to keep me from lunging after the tech. I don't know what I would have done if I had caught him. Maybe sat on him until he agreed to fix the fridge.

At this point, it's Friday at 3 pm. I figured we were screwed until Monday.

Luckily, my husband is not 9 months pregnant and is still capable of thinking logically. He called the warranty company and got a new list of companies whom he began methodically calling. He found a company that agreed to come out on Saturday, given our time constraints.

The new tech showed up Saturday at 11. He cleaned out the back of the fridge, fiddled with it a bit, and got it working. In 20 minutes.

He did point out that this was a patch job, but it would get us through the weekend. And that the company would send out a new tech on Tuesday to fix the fridge for good.

Riddle Appliances. Totally the way to go.

And the other guys - Coastline? I think they knew I was upset, because they called to tell me they could come back out today to fix my fridge. I explained that we wouldn't be doing business with them because of their lack of professionalism, their inability to communicate, and their inability to fix our fridge.

The customer service lady said, "Huh. Well, okay," and hung up.

Is that their standard response over there?