There have been some not-so-awesome things happening in our house lately. You know, to add to the list of not-so-awesome things that have been happening since we bought this place. (Dear Little House: We are appreciative of all that you do for us, but 60 years just isn't treating you well. Please don't take this post personally and start getting even worse.)

First, the monsoon season left us with a flooded basement. I'm exaggerating a bit: only half of the basement flooded. And there was less than an inch of standing water, but still. Luckily (?) our basement is really uneven and half of it is still covered in musty vinyl tiles (something we hope to take care of this weekend), so the high ground (carpeted side) was saved.

Second, after weeks of messing with the wiring, we're pretty sure that the only usable telephone jack is in the nursery. And since we're still stuck in the dark ages what with our DSL connection and all, that means that the modem and phone have to remain plugged in there. This brings our total super-baby-safe square footage down to exactly ... 0. Before Chase could crawl, that didn't seem to matter. Now it does. A lot.

Third, and most annoying/expensive/not-so-awesome: our washing machine broke down last night. And it didn't break in between loads or anything. No, it broke right in the middle of the first diaper rinse cycle. We bought the machine new last January (Whirlpool Duet, in case you're in the market for appliances to avoid), installed it in April, and have been using it 2-3 times a week since, mostly just for the diapers. (We're not really big laundry people.) Anyways, it reeked of burning plastic and wouldn't do anything, so I hauled the semi-poopy cloth upstairs to the tub (which, of course, we'd just scrubbed out to start using for Chase's baths) and stomped around in human waste while Erik tried to diagnose the problem.

[Side note: please realize I'm exaggerating again. Cloth diapers get a bum rap for being disgusting, and I'm taking full advantage of that for entertainment purposes. The boring truth is that I was basically just rinsing pee out of cotton.]

So anyways, where were we? Ah yes, cursing our washing machine. We checked in with Whirlpool - we were officially 57 days out of warranty, and the soonest they could be here was Tuesday for $129 plus parts. So we shopped around: Best Buy's Geek Squad would be $100 for the first visit, parts, and $35/15 minutes of install labor; Sears was even more; and our nice local guy doesn't do washers. Assuming it was the motor, we'd be out anywhere from $250-$350. To fix a machine that might crap out again in 11 months. Long story short, we decided we'd be better off just buying a new, cheap top-loader. But first, I typed out a bitter note to Whirlpool, mostly to get it off my chest.

Well this morning I got a call, bright and early, from their Customer Service Department. The company is "very stringent about their warranty periods, probably because of the recession" but my lady had totally "talked to her boss and convinced him to grant a 6-month warranty extension!" Well hooray! "Beginning after this repair." Umm... so they, like, totally stand behind their product not to break again for the next six months, once we have it serviced back to like-new condition? In nicer words, I told her to shove it. She put me on hold. "Okay, great news," she whispered conspiratorially, "we'll cover the cost of the part or parts. You're really lucky, we don't do this for everyone." Right, you only do it for people who expect more than a year's worth of work out of the appliance they dropped half a grand on. Isn't it nice to know that we've become so complacent?

And the moral of the story is: Ask, and ye shall probably get what you pretty much deserved in the first place.