This week I
begin this report with a discussion about what a gullible fool I am. We bought
a couple of those bright green Pocket Hoses you see so heavily advertised on TV,
and they seemed like a great idea at the time. In the ad it boasts they don’t
kink and they are much more manageable than conventional garden hoses. Of course
they came with some kind of guarantee, and what cinched the deal for me was
that they use the handyman from Home
Improvement as their point man. Naturally, I assumed this was going to be a
good product. The Home Improvement
guy wouldn’t steer me wrong right? Guess what, he isn’t really a handyman. I should have known as soon as I ordered these
things over the phone that something was odiferous in Denmark. The person from
Bangladesh who took my order was doing a lot of fast talking in broken English.
When I order a Pocket Hose I am theneligible for an incredible discount on the solar powered nose hair trimmers. I said
“No thank you, just the two hoses.” But when I declined the nose hair trimmer,
there were literally ten other deals which I was forced to decline as well, and
the person taking the order was talking so fast I almost slipped up and ordered
something else I did not want. By the end of the conversation I was getting
really annoyed and almost cancelled the order altogether. Almost. Anyhow, within three weeks my hose arrived, probably from
China, and I was so excited. After hooking it up to our outdoor faucet, it
seemed to be everything the ad promised it would be. Then it sprung a leak
after about three uses. The second hose also sprung a leak – actually five or
six leaks – the first time I used it! When I called to complain to the company,
which has a Van Nuys, California address but whose customer support is in
Tibet, they were just a little too familiar with the complaint. After providing
my original order number, they immediately agreed to send two more hoses free
of charge (original shipping was $17). My problem is that I now know the
product is crap and I have two large useless synthetic piles of fluorescent
green landfill, and will presumably have two more to throw out in about three
weeks. It’s not as if I’m some Birkenstock-wearing peace creep environmentalist,
but even a wasteful sloth like me can be sensitive to my Sasquatchian carbon
footprint. I feel taken, I feel violated, and I wish I had not acted so
impulsively when I spontaneously phoned PT Barnum Inc. and purged with my
little plastic magic wand. Of course I did a post mortem on the internet to
find out that I was not the only patsy to be hosed by the Pocket Hose bandits.
There were literally 78 pages of complaints listed when I Googled Pocket Hose
complaints. As is my motto: Life is a hosejob, but at least it’s a job. Word to
the wise, do not waste your money on a Pocket Hose.
It is 11:53
PM Monday night and we are in Toronto. We got a call Sunday night that Shauna’s
dad had had yet another stroke, and this one was far more severe than any of
his previous strokes. We have had little sleep and understandably Shauna and
her mom are pretty beat up. Syd is unable to speak two days after the stroke
and is severely impaired on his right side. He may not recover from this one,
but if he does, his health care will become exponentially more complicated.
Today, as I was heading home from the hospital to take Jasper out for a walk,
the heavens let loose and Toronto had a thunderstorm of biblical proportions.
Streets were flooded, cars were stranded on the Don Valley Pkwy, power was out
all over the city and people were stuck on the subway during their evening
commute. In short, there was chaos in the city. I crept up Bayview at a snail’s
pace, through the major intersections without traffic lights, and I thought to
myself, this too shall pass. Syd, wherever you are in that mental prison from
which you cannot escape, I’m saying a prayer for you on this stormy night.
Written by
Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
No comments:
Post a Comment