Heat Best Man And Mom, 6.3.2006 
Holy smokes, has it been a week already?! My humblest apologies, really. Please understand that it's been stifling hot lately, and all a dog wants to do is lie on the tile with his tongue out and wait for relief. Mom's the same way, waiting for relief that is, except she has sweat glands where I don't. I only have them on my pads, which is why in summer you'll frequently see us dogs lying on the floor upside down, all fours pointed up. Mom's strategy for relief was a trip to Home Depot where she scored an 18.3K BTU air conditioner. This behemoth was big enough to cool the entire Cavalier's arena. Took both Master and Mom everything they had just to get this bad boy into our house. Soon to be cold as a meat locker, or so we thought.
Well, after everything was out of the box and the pieces spread out on the table, Master realized there were parts missing. Uh oh. Plus the remote control and installation instructions weren't in the box. Big deal, right? I mean it's just a window air conditioner, how hard can it be? Mom tripped back to Home Depot and got the remote control and the instruction manual, while Master thought to go online to see if he could find an instruction manual at the manufacturer's web site. But as luck would have it the Internet was down. Oy vey. When Mom returned with the installation instructions they discovered they were not for the model they bought. Screw it. Everything went back into the box and together they lugged it back out to the car. By now it's about 85 degrees out. The damn air conditioner is so big they need a flat bed cart to get it back inside the store. At the return counter they finally get waited on, but there's not $319 in the cash drawer to fulfill the refund, so they wait and wait for someone named "Shawana" to fetch more money from a register, which was evidently in the next county because she never did come back. Some 15 minutes later, still waiting, another clerk finally asks, "Oh, all you need is $300? I've got that in my drawer." Grrrrr. The temperature outside is now probably over 90.
Back in the car and off to Lowes, across town. They have a dandy 12.3K BTU Samsung. Cools up to 800 sq ft the box said. Cool. Unfortunately, the only two left are on the second shelf of the scaffolding, which requires a fork lift, which of course is at the back of the store. More waiting. Finally it arrives, beeping and all, but it just sits there in front of the scaffold -- waiting. Now what? Another man has to go find a brightly painted yellow flexible gate with a sign on it that says, "Caution: Forklift in operation, this aisle closed." They are not allowed to operate the forklift, even for the shortest, simplest task, without this gate up. This took about ten more minutes. In the meantime the clerk offered Master the unit on the floor. "Same model," he says, "just looks like the box has been opened once. But we taped it back up, I'm sure everything's in there." Yeah, right, of course it is. They continue to wait for the yellow gate. Finally a young man returns with it, he stretches it open across the aisle (mind you, there's no one in sight except Master and Mom), and in about 30 seconds the new Samsung is on the floor! And only $249 to boot. Things are looking up. With their faith in the free market restored, they uneventfully pass through checkout and return home.
By now the day was shot. They left the Samsung in Mom's car, they each took a cool shower, then hopped in the Benz and headed to Lakewood for drinks and appetizers. Lucy and I stayed at home, of course, on the tile, paws up.
Oh, the picture. That's our friend Mark, the best man at the wedding, in a Lens Baby shot with Mom. All the pictures are in now, and we're sorting through them.
8:36:26 PM  Comments disabled
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