Category Archives: Style

This is going to be a bit of a rant…

I hate Sears….

And I can’t even begin to count the ways, but I’ll try.

I always said there were three things you could count on in life:  Death, Taxes and that I would never buy clothes at Sears.

So, they  bought Lands End, who I use to love, and I had to mark them off my shopping list.  Now I was limited to Brooks Brothers, J Crew, Polo/Ralph Lauren and LL Bean….

That only reinforced that appliances were the only reason to go to Sears.

I was raised that if you needed to purchase an appliance- any appliance- you just went to Sears.  That’s what we did.  It was a non-debatable given.  Everyone thought Kenmore appliances were the best and they used to last for years.  My Mother had her Harvest Gold Refrigerator in the kitchen for a good 30 years.  Long after we all wished it would die…

No more.

When we bought and renovated our house about 5 years ago, I bought all the new appliances for our new kitchen at Sears.

I wanted to get the best, so they would last.  Foolish, foolish me….

Within a month, the new refrigerator stopped working and we lost all our food.  When I called for service, I had to speak to someone in Georgia to schedule service in North Carolina.  It was a week to 10 days before they could get to us…When I complained about all the food we lost, they said I should have bought the extended warranty to cover the food.  It was my fault we lost our food.

When the repairman finally came, he said it was a “known problem” and the part that failed on our refrigerator was failing on all the refrigerators of that model.  Of course, they didn’t tell you that when you bought it or pro-actively contact you to replace it.  This also meant they were out of stock for the part and had to order it.  This meant a few more days before they could finally fix it.  We went almost two weeks without a refrigerator.

This was a very expensive 2 door refrigerator with the pull out drawer for the freezer.  I had loved it when we got it, but I can never truly trust it again.

Now, five years later, our top-of-the-line Kenmore Elite dishwasher is dead.

We, of course, only use non-Sears repairmen now.  They do not have any vested interest in us buying new appliances.  We spent about $175 them to fix the dishwasher door last month.   It just started falling to the floor when you opened it.

A couple of days after they fixed that, the dishwasher started making a strange sound.  When the repairman came back today, he said “junk it”.  The stainless steal tub was leaking, the pump was shot and the motor was “sparking.”  He said it would cost almost as much to fix it as to buy a new one.  It wasn’t even safe to use it until we got a new one.

I broke the pattern.  I did not go back to Sears.  I’ll never go there again.  Our relationship is over…

Instead, now I’m waiting two weeks for Lowes to deliver our new Bosch dishwasher.  We have to wait for a special order because I am so picky and had to have a particular model that both had all the features I wanted/needed and was top rated by owners and major consumer magazines.

But I’m not sure I’ll make it.  I’m a Dishwasher addict and can’t imagine washing dishes by hand.

I’ve already told my partner, Steve, this means no one can eat or drink anything in the house, for the next two weeks, unless it is in a disposable container with plastic utensils we can throw away.

The hell with the environment until I get my new dishwasher….

Now that Sears appliances and service are worthless, there is simply no longer any reason for Sears to exist.

It’s time to euthanize them.

Someone please put Sears out of their misery before they kill an appliance again.

Another American Institution has bit the dust and needs to be swept away….