On buying appliances

Why is it that appliance stores can no longer display the real price of an item? Now, you have to have a magnifying glass and a one thousand watt quartz halogen lamp in order to read all the fine print beneath the large type, apparently mythical, “price”. There is usually a long list of disclaimers and notices about the types of rebates that you must send for in order to actually purchase the item at that elusive amount. That price magically materializes only after you have completed the modern equivalent of Hercules’ seven labors.

I have no luck, at all, with rebate offers. I usually miss some “fine print” condition and my rebate claim is refused with a post card months later. Sometimes, it is because that, at some point in time, a member of my family has already received a rebate for model number 77283929938-ksdl82993839-black. So, my model number 32392938182-slkkd3892038-blue is excluded from the rebate offer. I guess I should know the model numbers of every appliance ever purchased by any member of my household within the past decade, but I’ve had a lot on my mind lately. One of the other things that hangs me up is that I forget to include some specified UPC code, store receipt, rebate receipt, packaging label, three by five index card, or mummified spider monkey paw in the rebate envelope. Sometimes, I haven’t completely filled out the request form which wanted to know my age, birth date, address, income level, education, job history, major surgeries, level of involvement in incidents of primate amputation, and the model numbers of the five most recently purchased blue home appliances. The level of intrusiveness exhibited by the Spanish Inquisition was less than what I have to put up with in order to get a five-dollar check.

I can only take so much rejection. From now on, I am boycotting any store that hides the price of their goods under a blizzard of rebate fluff. I’m sure that retailers the world over are quaking in fear, but the spider monkeys are doing handstands.