I hate Sears.
Those of you without a yard that requires you to work on it, may want to sit this one out. OK, but I warned you.
I hate Sears. There, I said it, and I'm glad. Why do I hate Sears? Well, I'll tell you. For some reason, every piece of motorized lawn equipment I own came from Sears. I don't know why. Perhaps it's because they're nearby my house, perhaps it's because they have more stock than Home Depot or similar stores, perhaps it's because they have an ungodly amount of tools on display thereby giving you the illusion that they care about you and the work you have to do. I don't know, but the fact remains that all of my motorized lawn stuff comes from Sears.
Now, when you buy something from Sears, you get, in your instruction manual, a complete listing of every part, right down to the fucking molecules of your entire device. They even show you how all of these parts fit together, should you need to replace 5/8" Galvanized Screw #3. Great, you think, when I need a new blade for my lawnmower, or a new spool of line for my weedwhacker, I'm all set. Yeah, you'd think that, wouldn't you.
A few weeks ago, I ran out of line for my weedwhacker. I hate my weedwhacker, not because this particular model sucks, but because weedwhackers have suckiness inherent to them, bonded to their very atomic structure, if you will. They are all loud, they are all heavy and they are all about as easy to start as a dead monkey. They also have a finite length of line, a glaring design decision if ever there was one. Luckily, I still have the instruction manual for my weedwhacker, so all I'd have to do is go to Sears and I'd be all set, right? Oh, you poor, sad child.
The first problem became when looking for the part. My part number had 6 digits, all of the parts on the wall had part numbers with 5 digits. Now, I could leave out digits in my number to make them closer to the part numbers on the wall, but the closest I got would have had me installing a dishwasher on my weedwhacker, and that didn't seem right to me. No problem, I thought, here's a handy flip book to tell me what part number I should use for my weedwhacker. This is when the second problem came. My weedwhacker, is about 5 years old, and they only had parts listed for models that came out in the past 2 years. I was unaware that weedwhacker production was on a yearly schedule. I kind of thought that the weedwhacking conundrum had been sufficiently resolved such that yearly releases weren't needed. My mistake.
At some point in the past 5 years, Sears decided to use fucking Sanskrit as their model numbers, because I couldn't find something even remotely the same as my weedwhacker's model number, nor could I find any correlation between the part numbers in the flipbook and the part numbers on the wall. I think the flipbook is Sears's own brand of quirky humor and the clerks were all getting a big laugh out of my activities.
To their credit, Sears does have a website that allows you to put in your model number, select a part from the parts diagram and purchase them. It was through these means that I finally got my spools and could resume whacking weeds. As a side note, I promptly fucked one spool up beyond all recognition. I'm going to attempt to rewind that one on my own, and just install the other one I purchased, but hopes aren't high. The last time I attempted to rewind a spool I ended up losing my gall bladder. Long story.
Now, fast forward a few weeks and my mower needs to have it's blade sharpened. My father-in-law, who's like the handiest person on the planet, had shown me, previously, how to sharpen the blades. No problem. I take my spare blade, bring it downstairs, sharpen it up, make sure it's balanced and switch the dull one out with it. Problem. I don't know what the hell I did to that blade, but grass was shooting out of the mower from places that shouldn't have had room for grass. It was like eating something bad and throwing up from your hair. I managed to get the lawn mowed, but not before making my backyard look like a goddamned hay loft. Figuring that I did something wrong when I sharpened the blade, I consulted some handyman books I have (wasted paper if ever there was) and, armed with my newfound knowledge, went to sharpen the other blade.
I should have known that if I was unable to sharpen one blade successfully, a second attempt would prove to be only a hair less than disastrous. First, in my annoyance I didn't wear gloves, a foolish and ultimately painful decision as metal shavings and flesh do not a happy couple make. Second, the blade refused to balance upon being sharpened. If the blade isn't balanced, then when mowing it'll cut unevenly, the mower will shake and ultimately explode, sending you in a fine mist all over your neighborhood. The way to test for balance it to hang the blade on a nail, see which end is lower and file it appropriately. I spent 30 minutes balancing the goddamned thing and I swear it only got worse. I'd hang it, see that the left side was heavier, file the left side and rehang it, only to find that the left side was heavier than before. I must have one of those new-fangled reverse files that puts metal back on things. Then, I'd turn the file over, so that the front was now back and vice versa (not flipped left to right, I'm not that dumb) and it'd be unbalanced in a completely different manner. This lead me to believe two things, one is that I didn't do as good a job with the last sharpening job as I had thought, and second is that it isn't even fucking worth it to save the 13 bucks needed to buy a new blade. As a side note, in the manual for the lawnmower it says, and I quote, "We do not recommend sharpening the blade". That makes two of us.
Armed with my mower manual, back to Sears I went. This time, at least they had blades that seemed to match my blade, but again, the part numbers were completely different. I swear the blade I bought has its part number in hexadecimal. What I'd like to know, is that if you only sell one kind of 21" mulching blade, and all of the 21" mulching mowers from 1955 until now use a 21" mulching blade, why the hell, wouldn't the part numbers be the same? I can see if you sell like 15 of them, and some of them just cut the lawn, but some of them give you a fucking sandwich and a blowjob when you're finished, that you would need different part numbers between the blade and the manual. In this case, however, there appeared to be a 1:1 ratio between blades on the wall and blades in the manual. And even if they started making a different blade, made out of rubber or diamond, or fucking adamantium with kryptonite inlay, why not, for the sake of us, the poor consumer, just give it the same goddamned part number as previous 21" mulching blades. Why? Because Sears is evil, that's why and they make it seem that if you don't buy genuine Sears parts for your genuine Sears lawnmower you'll go to a special circle of Hell reseved for child molesters and people who don't flush public toilets.
It doesn't help that my lawn insists on growing at a rate of several feet per day. I try to water it just enough to keep it from being flammable, but it keeps on raining, which means that the grass keeps on growing. I told Linda that I feel like I'm always mowing the lawn. I didn't hear her reply as I had to go cut the lawn but I'm sure she agreed with me.
In other news, I'm going to see Riddick on Thursday, and getting Phyxie's copy of the game on Wed. so I'll chime in with my opinions of both at the end of this week. I know, I know, you can't wait. Also, I'm almost done with Thief so I'll have some thoughts on that soon too. If you don't feel like waiting for my final word, just go out and buy it now. It is such a monumentally entertaining game that you won't be dissappointed. This game has hijacked my very existance. I usually don't speak to Linda about games, because she gets this far away look in her eyes, letting me know she's just barely paying attention, but with this game I am powerless to resist speaking of it. As a result, she has had to hear of all of my thiefly exploits while doing her best to maintain consciousness, or at least a passing semblance to it. And really, that's all I'm asking for.
I hate Sears. There, I said it, and I'm glad. Why do I hate Sears? Well, I'll tell you. For some reason, every piece of motorized lawn equipment I own came from Sears. I don't know why. Perhaps it's because they're nearby my house, perhaps it's because they have more stock than Home Depot or similar stores, perhaps it's because they have an ungodly amount of tools on display thereby giving you the illusion that they care about you and the work you have to do. I don't know, but the fact remains that all of my motorized lawn stuff comes from Sears.
Now, when you buy something from Sears, you get, in your instruction manual, a complete listing of every part, right down to the fucking molecules of your entire device. They even show you how all of these parts fit together, should you need to replace 5/8" Galvanized Screw #3. Great, you think, when I need a new blade for my lawnmower, or a new spool of line for my weedwhacker, I'm all set. Yeah, you'd think that, wouldn't you.
A few weeks ago, I ran out of line for my weedwhacker. I hate my weedwhacker, not because this particular model sucks, but because weedwhackers have suckiness inherent to them, bonded to their very atomic structure, if you will. They are all loud, they are all heavy and they are all about as easy to start as a dead monkey. They also have a finite length of line, a glaring design decision if ever there was one. Luckily, I still have the instruction manual for my weedwhacker, so all I'd have to do is go to Sears and I'd be all set, right? Oh, you poor, sad child.
The first problem became when looking for the part. My part number had 6 digits, all of the parts on the wall had part numbers with 5 digits. Now, I could leave out digits in my number to make them closer to the part numbers on the wall, but the closest I got would have had me installing a dishwasher on my weedwhacker, and that didn't seem right to me. No problem, I thought, here's a handy flip book to tell me what part number I should use for my weedwhacker. This is when the second problem came. My weedwhacker, is about 5 years old, and they only had parts listed for models that came out in the past 2 years. I was unaware that weedwhacker production was on a yearly schedule. I kind of thought that the weedwhacking conundrum had been sufficiently resolved such that yearly releases weren't needed. My mistake.
At some point in the past 5 years, Sears decided to use fucking Sanskrit as their model numbers, because I couldn't find something even remotely the same as my weedwhacker's model number, nor could I find any correlation between the part numbers in the flipbook and the part numbers on the wall. I think the flipbook is Sears's own brand of quirky humor and the clerks were all getting a big laugh out of my activities.
To their credit, Sears does have a website that allows you to put in your model number, select a part from the parts diagram and purchase them. It was through these means that I finally got my spools and could resume whacking weeds. As a side note, I promptly fucked one spool up beyond all recognition. I'm going to attempt to rewind that one on my own, and just install the other one I purchased, but hopes aren't high. The last time I attempted to rewind a spool I ended up losing my gall bladder. Long story.
Now, fast forward a few weeks and my mower needs to have it's blade sharpened. My father-in-law, who's like the handiest person on the planet, had shown me, previously, how to sharpen the blades. No problem. I take my spare blade, bring it downstairs, sharpen it up, make sure it's balanced and switch the dull one out with it. Problem. I don't know what the hell I did to that blade, but grass was shooting out of the mower from places that shouldn't have had room for grass. It was like eating something bad and throwing up from your hair. I managed to get the lawn mowed, but not before making my backyard look like a goddamned hay loft. Figuring that I did something wrong when I sharpened the blade, I consulted some handyman books I have (wasted paper if ever there was) and, armed with my newfound knowledge, went to sharpen the other blade.
I should have known that if I was unable to sharpen one blade successfully, a second attempt would prove to be only a hair less than disastrous. First, in my annoyance I didn't wear gloves, a foolish and ultimately painful decision as metal shavings and flesh do not a happy couple make. Second, the blade refused to balance upon being sharpened. If the blade isn't balanced, then when mowing it'll cut unevenly, the mower will shake and ultimately explode, sending you in a fine mist all over your neighborhood. The way to test for balance it to hang the blade on a nail, see which end is lower and file it appropriately. I spent 30 minutes balancing the goddamned thing and I swear it only got worse. I'd hang it, see that the left side was heavier, file the left side and rehang it, only to find that the left side was heavier than before. I must have one of those new-fangled reverse files that puts metal back on things. Then, I'd turn the file over, so that the front was now back and vice versa (not flipped left to right, I'm not that dumb) and it'd be unbalanced in a completely different manner. This lead me to believe two things, one is that I didn't do as good a job with the last sharpening job as I had thought, and second is that it isn't even fucking worth it to save the 13 bucks needed to buy a new blade. As a side note, in the manual for the lawnmower it says, and I quote, "We do not recommend sharpening the blade". That makes two of us.
Armed with my mower manual, back to Sears I went. This time, at least they had blades that seemed to match my blade, but again, the part numbers were completely different. I swear the blade I bought has its part number in hexadecimal. What I'd like to know, is that if you only sell one kind of 21" mulching blade, and all of the 21" mulching mowers from 1955 until now use a 21" mulching blade, why the hell, wouldn't the part numbers be the same? I can see if you sell like 15 of them, and some of them just cut the lawn, but some of them give you a fucking sandwich and a blowjob when you're finished, that you would need different part numbers between the blade and the manual. In this case, however, there appeared to be a 1:1 ratio between blades on the wall and blades in the manual. And even if they started making a different blade, made out of rubber or diamond, or fucking adamantium with kryptonite inlay, why not, for the sake of us, the poor consumer, just give it the same goddamned part number as previous 21" mulching blades. Why? Because Sears is evil, that's why and they make it seem that if you don't buy genuine Sears parts for your genuine Sears lawnmower you'll go to a special circle of Hell reseved for child molesters and people who don't flush public toilets.
It doesn't help that my lawn insists on growing at a rate of several feet per day. I try to water it just enough to keep it from being flammable, but it keeps on raining, which means that the grass keeps on growing. I told Linda that I feel like I'm always mowing the lawn. I didn't hear her reply as I had to go cut the lawn but I'm sure she agreed with me.
In other news, I'm going to see Riddick on Thursday, and getting Phyxie's copy of the game on Wed. so I'll chime in with my opinions of both at the end of this week. I know, I know, you can't wait. Also, I'm almost done with Thief so I'll have some thoughts on that soon too. If you don't feel like waiting for my final word, just go out and buy it now. It is such a monumentally entertaining game that you won't be dissappointed. This game has hijacked my very existance. I usually don't speak to Linda about games, because she gets this far away look in her eyes, letting me know she's just barely paying attention, but with this game I am powerless to resist speaking of it. As a result, she has had to hear of all of my thiefly exploits while doing her best to maintain consciousness, or at least a passing semblance to it. And really, that's all I'm asking for.
posted by Brandon at
1:16 PM
