Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Circuit City´s 2-Year Warranty

So it´s been a while since I´ve posted, but this time it wasn´t due to spring, forgetfulness, or indifference. Al contrario, I have been raring to post, but my computer was sequestered by Circuit City. Apparently a shifty-eyed man claiming to work for Circuit City gave my mom a paper promising that the moribund computer would be fixed within days. Then, that date having come and threatening to go with no return phone call, much less a returned computer, it became apparent that Circuit City a) has a Derrida-ean "constructed" understanding of the term "promised by" and b) does not know how to operate their own phone system, much less a computer. I listened as my mother spoke to people in 2 continents and every single department of Circuit City EXCEPT the computer department in tones ranging from desperation to fury to aphasic sobs. Weeks passed, our only contact with the computer came through a FedEx number wrested through hours of negotiations which revealed the computer to be making journeys across the country, returning to Brooklyn every few days but leaping off to new and better pastures whenever my mom hurried to try to sweep it away from Circuit City´s porous clutches. Apparently the Circuit City "2-year warranty" refers not to the amount of time the computer is covered for repairs, but rather the length of time that a single repair takes.

So it took a month. And then, to add insult to injury, when they finally sent it back, do you know what they had the gall to suggest had been the problem???

PET HAIR IN THE HARDWARE.

First of all, I´m denying everything. How do they know it was "pet" hair? And even if it was, how does that immediately implicate me? Because I´m the only "pet" (and I reject the term) here? Circumstancial. Do they have eye witnesses who can testify that no other pet entered this apartment in the entire 2 year period my mother has owned this computer? And, as they say in Spanish legal circles, caso negado que fuese--how long have I been telling everyone who will listen that if they made a dog-friendly keyboard, I wouldn´t be forced to thwap my paws all over the keyboards trying to type, which in certain circumstances could conceivably and completely justifiably cause a few hairs to slip between the keys!?!?

I´m shedding just thinking about it. I´d better stop if I want this post to see the light of day.