Breaking: Local Man Actually Uses Extended Warranty

But there's just one small problem.

I am absolutely done buying cheap junk from China. From now on it’s - (checks the web for American-made alternatives) Okay from now on it’s cheap junk from South Korea, until they onshore the vital egg-beater industry. What pushed me to this rash moment?

The leaf blower. I’ve always hated this thing. Big snout for blowing and sucking, and a huge heavy sack that makes you feel you’re playing the world’s worst bagpipe. It’s not gas powered; it’s not battery powered. It must be plugged in, with an extension cord, which of course has somehow tied itself into a Gordian knot since you put it in the shed last week. I swear I am cursed by the ghosts of old sailors, who come in the night to wreak vengeance on the living by tying extension cords into some obscure knot used to moor the HMS Incontinent to the dock in 1757.

After you untangle the cord, you walk around hoovering up desiccated vegetation, and the cord snags on some minuscule impediment and yanks out the plug. It’s annoying the first time, but after five times a red mist of fury descends and you feel like you could kick an anvil over the fence.

But. That’s not the worst part. A few seasons back, the bag ripped. Big tear. I didn’t realize this until I realized I’d been sucking up leaves for five minutes and the bag wasn’t any heavier. When I looked back I saw all the leaves blowing out behind me. I was just repositioning leaves. What to do? Get out my sewing kit and stitch it up? I have no such skills. Duct tape, that might work - and indeed it did, for a while, but the bag was so dusty the tape would lose its purchase, and I eventually heard it flapping loose, as if it was patting all the escaping leaves on the back. Nice to see ya, how you doin’, take care now

Augh. Well. We’ll have to get another, then. I went to Amazon, found a replacement, and ordered - hello, what’s this?

Extended service contract offer. Seven dollars.

They offer those for everything, I think. You order a simple toothbrush and you can probably get an extended service contract for .37. Covers snapping in half; does not cover bristle splaying; cannot be transferred to another toothbrush. I always decline these offers and stifle the feeling that I’m rolling the dice. But this time I bought it, because I’d just seen the thing fall apart. If the replacement falls apart, I will cry in triumph to the heavens and wave my service contract and say NOT THIS TIME, SATAN, which would be stupid because he’s not up there, hasn’t been for a long time. Probably still gets mail delivered there, but no. So I would have to yell NOT THIS TIME, SATAN at the ground, and hope it carries. Anyway.

Flash forward to yesterday. Wife is using the stupid thing to pick up some sand left by a patio project. The repair guy had walked around strewing handfuls like some Johnny Appleseed on speed, and consequently there was sand everywhere inside and out. She’d vacuumed. I’d pressure-washed. Still: sand. It was like the Sahara. Peter O’Toole strolled across the patio and remarked how he felt right at home. Either we install one of those beach showers that let you wash your feet before you head back to the resort, or we use the hated leaf sucker.

After a while she said it wasn’t picking up very well, because there was a hole in the bag. I was simultaneously mad and euphoric. NOT THIS TIME, SATAN I cried. No - wait, the leaf blower’s still on, he might not hear. Turn it off, hon, so I can throw this matter in the face of Old Nick.

I flipped open my laptop and went to Amazon, and tried to find my contract. No luck. Grokked a query about how to find it, and was given the name of the company that apparently sells contracts for everything. There’s a room where one electronic billboard shows the numbers of contracts sold, and the numbers run like water over the falls, and the other board shows the people putting in claims, and it goes ding! Every hour or so. The owner probably has a 47-room house in Florida.

There was the contract. Good for three years.

Purchased August 2022.

My wife, noting my stricken expression, asked what was the matter. I couldn’t say “Satan won,” because I really don’t think the titanic struggle of good and evil applies in this case. But I will get a new leaf blower. One those ones you wear on your back.

So I can shout Satan get behind me when I put it on.