Whack a Mole...

SIGH!!! Sometimes you have one of those days when you just seem a little "off" and things aren't quite going your way. Then there's the days when the Gods are laughing at you and seem to want to challenge your sanity.......and every once in a while, you'll have a day that leaves you stalking around your house with a maniacal grin and a baseball bat in your hand, just daring the next @%&$^!# thing to go wrong. Yeah. I'm there.

So last night our 50" plasma TV made a lovely "popping the champagne cork" sound and summarily died. My husband and I just looked at each other and sighed resolutely. It's just a Stupid TV after all, and something breaks or goes catastrophically wrong in our household at least once a week. No, I'm really not exaggerating.

And in yet another "they don't make 'em like they used to" moment, we realized the Stupid TV is just a little over two years old....and just out of warranty. Of course.

It's actually not even the Stupid TV that we originally bought. Oh no. When we first bought this house, the furniture layout in the family room was such that only a wall-mounted plasma TV would fit. Or so we told ourselves. It was a great excuse to buy what was then a brand-new phenomenon. (the flat, wall-mounted TV was still rare then) So we happily plunked down an exorbitant amount of money and enjoyed 2 years of plasma TV bliss...until the Stupid TV made a lovely sizzling noise and summarily died. Of course, it was just out of warranty then, too. Oh, and whatever it did to itself, it couldn't be fixed. It had to be replaced. But after weeks of days-long calls with Circuit City (heartless bastards of the universe), they finally agreed to replace the TV.

Our replacement TV was from a completely different manufacturer and was of significantly less quality than the one we'd bought. Not to mention that it cost $6,000 less than the TV we'd originally been sold from the heartless bastards of the universe. But we sucked it up, admitted we'd bought in too early and paid too much, and hung the new, replacement piece of crap on the wall.

Now, just two years later...again...we have no TV. And of course there's no warranty left. And the manufacturer won't touch it. All they will do is to give me the number of a local "Authorized repair shop" - whose answering machine message is in Spanish, by the way.....ummm, no habla espanol, amigos. Come fix my TV. Now.

Meanwhile, my wireless internet router seems to be on the fritz, my 20 year old cat has alternately pooped, peed and puked in my dining room - always waiting for me to get the carpet steam cleaner 2-ton machine put completely away before letting loose the next bout of bodily fluids. I've logged three calls from clients whose websites I built, and whose websites chose today to start acting up. Oh yes, there's more, but I'll spare you. Perhaps I should get some cheese to go with my whine.

Besides, holding up this baseball bat in between my chin and shoulder as I type this post is getting painful.......is it too early for wine? I think it'll go great with my new, rousing version of "whack a mole".........