Appliance Possession and Antelope Spirits - Part II

My appliances are staging a coup against me.  They are rebelling at the same time and plotting an uprising.  They've joined forces with the antelope spirits to push me to the point of insanity.  And they've succeeded.

Rebellion #1 - The Microwave

The day before Christmas Eve, I was starting to prepare my food for our Holy Supper and Christmas Day dinner.  I'm happily going along through my afternoon, singing along to Christmas carols while I'm steaming my cabbage in the microwave.  (If you ever need to steam cabbage, this is a fabulous, time-saving way to do it!)  I go to reheat my coffee in the microwave and nothing.  Zilch.  No power.  Dead.  Sigh......

So, hubby and I pack the kids up and head over to Lowe's to buy a new microwave.  We have an over-the-stove microwave, so with all the cooking I was doing, My Marine wasn't going to be able to install it until after Christmas.  We get back home, I continue steaming cabbage the old-fashioned boiling way and hubby goes out to do some last-minute Christmas shopping.  As I'm doing dishes, I turn around to grab a dish towel off the kitchen counter and -- holy shit! -- the microwave is back on!  I stood there staring at it for a minute thinking that I hallucinated the whole thing.  I cautiously put a cup of coffee in to reheat and the damn thing was working again!!

So just to be safe, I put some rosary beads on top of the microwave -- and it's been working like a champ since then with no other problems.  The new microwave was returned after New Year's.

Rebellion #2 - The Fridge

This past Monday night, I head upstairs to pour a glass of ice tea and grab a snack.  As I open the fridge door, I noticed that the temperature in the fridge and freezer was a little high.  Sometimes happens if the doors aren't shut all the way.  I check the doors and head back downstairs.  About an hour later, I head upstairs for a refill and the temperature is still rising.  Oh crap!  Oh, and did I mention the hissing sound I heard?  Kind of like water on a skillet.

So, My Marine does his "I'm a guy, let me look at it" thing, I find a number for a repairman and we set in place our back up plan for the food.  (It was negative-Oh-My-God that night, so our garage was like a walk-in freezer - cold enough to hold our fridge stuff until the next day.)

Our awesome repairman shows up promptly at 8am yesterday morning and does a diagnostics.  Turns out that it was the large motherboard-looking-thingie that fried itself.  Easily repairable AND less than the cost of the new fridge.  Not to mention that the nice repairman also fixed our water dispenser (which hasn't worked since My Marine was in Iraq) AND vacuumed behind the fridge.

The fridge is now working and our savings account is slightly dented.  I also have another set of rosary beads woven between the cereal boxes on top of the fridge.

Rebellion #3 - The Washer

I couldn't make this up if I tried.

Right after the repairman fixed the fridge and left yesterday, I decided to do some laundry.  Only to discover that the damn thing wouldn't go through the spin cycle and I was left with a sopping wet load of laundry.  As I tried to manually advance the cycle, I lost power completely -- NOTHING.

I stood there speechless - not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

I called My Marine who muttered a string of curse words that only Marines know how to use and then I called the repair company back.  They were speechless too, but said they could send someone over between 1-3pm.  At 1:30, the next repairman came by and said that they rerouted him to come by ASAP and that they would waive the service call charge since they were already here this morning.

Turns out the timer went on my washer.  Ironic, huh?  Perfect timing my ass.

Bottom line was it was fixed AND they only charged me for the parts - not the labor.  Our savings account is now 95% depleted.  And another set of rosary beads are now hanging off the corner of my washer.


Rebellion #4 and 5 - The Dishwasher

The day after Christmas, we invited a fellow soldier from My Marine's unit over for dinner.  After dinner, I clean up, load up the dishwasher, go to turn it on - and nothing. 

I seriously wanted to beat my head against a wall - especially after the microwave magic trick just two days before.  I just gave up, poured a glass of wine, and went downstairs to watch Jeff Dunham with the rest of the family.

After our guest left, just for giggles, I thought I'd try the dishwasher again.....and yep, you guessed it.  Started right up.  No problems.......

Until last night.

Once again, load up the dishes after dinner, turn it on and go downstairs.  Next thing I hear My Marine opening the dishwasher and cursing quietly under his breath.  Uh oh.  The pit of dread was forming in my stomach.  This was not good.  I was dreading having to make that call back to the repair company.

We weren't getting any water in the dishwasher.  It would start up and run, but no water.  Kind of defeats the purpose of a dishwasher, don't you think?

So, I make the call.  I now have the repair number on speed dial.  The nice lady on the other end was completely dumbfounded that this was happening to me and scheduled a service call for first thing this morning.

I spent last night not sleeping - worrying over every little sound in my house.  What was next?  The furnace?  The hot water tank?  I couldn't say that I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, because I'd run out of feet - using up my shoes with the fridge and the washer.

But wait -- it gets better.  This morning, I get up early to wait for the service guy when I thought I'd try the dishwasher one more time......

Can you guess?

The son of a bitch fired right up -- shooting glorious hot water into the dishwasher and working like there was no problem whatsoever.

The tension left my body.  I cancelled the service call and told Tiffani (we're now on a first name basis) that Cory (my repairman) is going to have to find another way to finance his son's college education - at least for today.

Because right now, I am very cautious and gun-shy of my appliances.  They are taunting me.  Keeping me on my toes.  Are you going to work today?  Are you not?

And besides -- I'm running out of rosary beads.