In “you still have to pick up your dry cleaning” news, we had a bit of a household crisis around here this week. In the middle of an intense heat wave (112 degrees last Friday and about 100 for several days after), my almost new refrigerator died. By almost new I mean three years old, so out of warranty. And because the digital temperature readouts said the fridge and freezer were the right temperature, when things slowly started melting I thought I was just imagining it or that the fridge couldn’t keep up with the intense heat. So by the time I knew something was really wrong most things were beyond saving. I spent a rage-filled day Tuesday stuck at home with a recalcitrant four year old waiting for repair men - the first guy said it was beyond his scope (thanks a lot); the second guy after two hours said it was probably the compressor which is thousands of dollars but should by law still be warrantied by the manufacturer for at least five years so I should really call them. I paid $75 for this information. The Sears guy can’t come until the 26th. So I spent the whole day frantically researching new fridges only to see none could be delivered until next week (why is that???), then looked into renting a fridge, also none which could be delivered until next week. Finally the BF tracked down a used mini fridge that could be delivered; it arrived yesterday, and I crammed what few remaining items could be salvaged from our hot fridge and the leaking 1950s cooler I’d been using for the more sensitive items. Now, we wait.
Part of the complication is, if I do have to buy a new fridge, I can only buy a counter depth one because of my tiny 1906 kitchen doorway, which limits my choices to about 5% of available fridges and raises the price about $1500. If I can hold out until the kitchen renovation begins in Sept, I can get any damned fridge I want. Well, my hope is this fridge can be fixed for free. I mean, I spent $3500 on this in 2015. Why on earth should I have to pay to replace the compressor three years later?!?
That and the price increase for my event have been the big news this week. It started off horribly when I woke up to see that the guy who programmed the price increase on the online registration accidentally set the prices back $55 to an early bird price, and a day earlier than the increase was supposed to happen. Thank God I wake up early now and am hyper vigilant enough that I just happened to check this and was able to get it fixed before I lost too much money. I mean, come on, people!
The rest of the day went smoothly, however. I was on hand to answer questions and fix people’s mistakes for them, and with no paperwork this year it was a breeze.
I have just slightly more people than I did this time last year. Which is really terrific considering that this should, as the 21st year, be “off”.
One thing I can’t figure out, though, is why I have so much less money if I have the same amount of people paying the same prices. I’m consistently about $30,000 down from last year. Why? I don’t think anything nefarious is going on - and it’s possible it can all be explained away by paying more things up front this year than last. Plus just living more expensively, period. But. I’m a bit worried. It shouldn’t impact my kitchen plans since that money is already put aside, but if I get to September and still have way less money I’m going to have to really look over everything with a fine tooth comb. I should be just as flush as last year, but I’m not.
Thankfully we leave for Hawaii on Sunday. Between the mother’s death, money woes and all these petty annoyances, I can’t tell you how much I need this.
No comments:
Post a Comment