At some point during February, I gave up.

Our oven had been broken for ten weeks. A repairman had been to our house four separate times, each time filling us with hope as he tried a new fix, replaced a different part, a part that had to be ordered and shipped and took weeks to come in. But finally, in mid-February, the patient, kind repairman reached the conclusion that our oven was, in his words, “a lemon.” He went back to his office and sent a report to Whirlpool that said under the terms of our warranty they needed to send us a whole new stove.

Great!

Whirlpool wrote back to him and said, but who speaks for the electrical outlet? Has the homeowner hired an electrician at their own expense to make sure that this oven is drawing the correct amount of power? From the fuses in the electrical panel that were upgraded—and the new and powerful outlet that was installed—in honor of the stove’s initial arrived?

I can’t tell you why, but that snapped it for me. I really thought I’d be able to tell Brian, we’re in the home stretch! We got an official lemon assessment and a new stove is on the way and I’ll celebrate the end of a long, oven-less winter by baking a big, fat batch of scones and sharing them with every non-gluten-free neighbor and coworker who’ll have one.

And yet, after ten weeks riding this roller coaster of hope and disappointment, the audacity of Whirlpool! Asking what was (in all fairness) a reasonable question about our power source made me SOMETHING. ALL THE PANDEMIC, HARDSHIP AND COMPROMISE, DEATH AND DISEASE??? I CANNOT. NO LONGER.

Then Emilio called. Emilio is the customer care specialist for the appliance store the stove was purchased from. Each time the repairman had come, Emilio had called the next day to make sure we’d received excellent service and our problem was resolved. And yet our problem had never been resolved, and each time Emilio called* I had to break the news to him.

*My feeling is that Emilio has never has the chance to develop a long-term customer relationship like the one we now have, and I’m not sure he likes it.

After the “we’re still not convinced it’s the oven, check the outlet” response from Whirlpool, I (see above: i.e., having snapped) didn’t have the strength to pick up when Emilio called to see if our problem had been satisfactorily resolved. So he left me a voicemail.

It took me a day to gather myself. Before I left him the saddest message I may have ever left for another human being. “Emilio,” I said wearily, “I’ve been patient, but this broke me. [long pause] We need an electrician now? I don’t—do you know an electrician? Can you send? Do you know?” I’m not sure I made sense, but he got the drift because, unprecedentedly, he did not call me back for three days. He may have had a short vacation, or he may have been, like me, gathering the pieces of his heart from the floor.

Three days later, he called back but I didn’t pick up. I wasn’t playing games, I was still genuinely unable to face what I knew I had to do, which was open Yelp and find an electrician. But (and now looking back, this is the crux of my despair) I had been married to a contractor for twenty-two years who confidently took care of shit like this for me, and I was legitimately terrified that I didn’t know which electrician to call, that I’d pick someone terrible who would make everything worse. I would thereby increase my own suffering.

So I went into full avoidance. I was like: fuck it. I’ve got four burners and a brand-new replacement toaster oven. Humanity has survived for thousands/millions of years without precisely calibrated hot boxes to cook food in, what made me so special? Was I such a princess that I demanded a team of people marshal vast global resources so that I could make yet one more batch of misshapen cinnamon scones?

Emilio called and left another voicemail. It took me a week until I was ready to talk to him again.

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

“We found an electrician,” I said. “We” was a lie—Brian had found a company, after seeing their trucks driving around town. The trucks were clean and well-appointed and were driven by people who appeared competent. Brian called them and arranged for someone to come out. “They’ll be here Tuesday to check the outlet.”

“Good,” said Emilio kindly. “I’ll call you on Wednesday.”

They came and looked, the outlet was fine. We paid a $65-an-hour electrician to put “it’s fine” in writing.

“Should I send you the electrician’s report?” I asked Emilio. No, he didn’t need to see it, and neither did Whirlpool. Which cheesed me off a bit! We (Brian) paid an electrician, and Corporate America just took our word for it? Didn’t they want a copy for our case file? Guess not! Guess we could have just said any old thing and saved ourselves sixty-five bucks!

Lisa from Whirlpool called a week later to tell me that a new stove of the exact same model will be here in three to four weeks. Lisa instructed me to examine the stove thoroughly when it arrives, and IF IT IS DAMAGED I MUST REFUSE DELIVERY. I MUST MAKE SURE IT WORKS PROPERLY BEFORE THE INSTALLERS LEAVE, AND IF IT DOESN’T THEY MUST UNINSTALL IT AND TAKE IT BACK AND WHIRLPOOL WILL SEND US ANOTHER NEW STOVE AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH