Sucker Hole

I'm tired of feeling like a sucker. I have two examples - one for now, one for later. But first, whither art thou readers? I get a new masthead and give you fresh lions and I get nothing? Hmph.

Okay, so last year I got this amazing enameled casserole by Cuisinart. It's big and green and I love it for making soups and whatnot:


Its heavy, it heats evenly, it's green, I love it. Over the holiday I decided to use it to make that bread recipe that all the rage on the Internets. The recipe requires that you have a heavy oven-safe lidded pot in which to bake your bread. So I make my dough, let it rise for eleventy billion hours and then I heat my enamel pot per instructions. When I pulled it out of the oven to plop the dough in I was met with HORROR AND DESTRUCTION. The inside enamel had bubbled up and cracked off in one big spot and the bottom of my pot was littered with nasty little enamel shards. I was pissed. But, I brushed it out, lined it with foil and threw the dough in anyway. Fuck it.

The bread, amazingly, came out great. My first loaf, my first time using the mysterious yeast! Here's the hilarious thing about yeast: nobody will tell you what the deal is. The instructions tell you to put it in warm water to make sure it's active but doesn't tell you what it's supposed to do, exactly. Nobody I asked seemed to be able to describe it either. Despite my lack of knowledge the yeast did it's freaky thing and the bread rose and all was good, aside for the destruction of my really expensive enamel casserole.

So, at the urging of my friends I called Cuisinart customer service and decided to make good on that lifetime warranty. Ha de ha ha. The customer service person I got was friendly enough but I could barely understand him. English was not his first language which made things a little... awkward. It was also awkward that he couldn't seem to find my item even though I gave him the model number and described it and even told him where on the damn website it could be found. FINALLY he figured out what I was talking about and was all, "Oh yes, that should be covered under the warranty and you should get a replacement." Then he put me on hold for a while, which is never a good sign.

When he came back, the story was suddenly different. He was all, "Actually, because this is enamel we have to do an investigation first and get back to you."

Say what?

Now, really. An investigation? Is that code for, "This is expensive so we're going to stall until you give up?" Or, is it code for, "We're going to wait until you go to work and then sneak in your house and poke through your cabinets for sign of improper pot usage?" I mean, WTH, Cuisinart. What, exactly, are you investigating?


I got a little sputtery and made Mr. Customer Service understand that I had NOT DROPPED OR DAMAGED the damn thing, that I heated it up and it busted. I mean, REALLY. He was very soothing and promised they'd get back in touch. Then he took down all my contact information which took about seven years because I had to spell everything out slowly and do that stupid army letter thing:

It's L E I

CES

TER

No, not P as in Peter, C as in Charlie.

No, LEI not LIE.

No, N like Nancy.

No, no, O as in OMG I'M GOING TO KILL YOU.

I hate spelling out my name and address over the phone almost as much as I hate centipedes and wrapping gifts.

So that's all I've got for now. We'll see what happens. My other story involves getting ripped off online and then catching the person who ripped me off, but we're still mid-negotiation, so I want to see how it ends before I document that squalor. I'll be in touch.