The Oven

Since we are so close to the Super Bowl, I felt it would be fitting to tell you about the family trip to Leon's (furniture and appliance store). No, a new TV was not purchased.

Did you know there are no sports figures named after an oven, a fridge yes, oven no. What preciptated a trip to the appliance store was a rapidly deteriorating stove/oven. It is to a point that we need a thermometer in the oven to verify the temperature. Currently, in order to get it to 300F you have to dial it up to 450F. Chicken fingers literally take days to cook, although it is more of a dessicating than a cooking.

So here we are, in the showroom, it had the same feeling one might expect when swimming in the amazon. We were almost instantly surrounded by the piranhas (err sales people). Unlike the movie we actually told them to go away (and it worked - I didn't have to resort to putting on my Speedo), until we had some questions or in the off chance we had made our decision.

We looked at a few models, looking for the one with the biggest oven space. We are currently the centre of the universe now for family events. So we need to cram a pretty big turkey in there on occassion. Eventually we realized that we had to talk to a piranha (err sales person). We give them the story, ask which model can hold the biggest turkey, and there it is - the attempted upscale to a convection oven (I am pretty sure the hole will be the same size).

"Nice try", I say. "If getting the food cooked faster, means getting the in-laws to go home sooner, it's a sale. However; their visits are always a specified number of days. Convection won't help."

He figures it out, explains which oven would be the best in our price range (imagine my disbelief when he selected one that wasn't the most expensive in our range) and we tell him to hook us up. We determine the delivery date. Now the payment options. We want to use our Leon's credit, he asks to see our card, we have never had a card, he responds is your credit with Citibank. "Yes", I say. He retorts, "We have broken off all business relations with them, you will need to reapply."

My head is pounding - this is bad. Applying for more credit, I am starting to feel my national debt ballooning to United States proportions.

The App (not to be confused with an iPhone app)

Name, address, social insurance number, home worth, amount owing on home, where do you work (I figured I was doomed and the sirens would have went off as soon as that was entered), monthly gross.

The sales guy was listening so intently that he entered my yearly salary as my monthly gross. For those of you that just read the last line and didn't even chuckle - that was sarcasm. Our sales guy was so pissed that this sale was taking longer than it should. Damn customers.

Now we are told to wait for 10 minutes until we get the answer. Time passes... "Need a co-signer", we are told. I knew that. The salesman didn't listen to us when we suggested that my wife also include her information. A "credit specialist" takes us back to the counter. She is going to add my wife's information.

Name, social insurance number, address (hmm, its my wife, how is she going to use the oven if she doesn't live at the same address - you figure that would be a no brainer - I am also so dead for an obvious male chauvinist comment), where does she work, monthly gross.

This is the best. The girl then depresses the "enter" key. Before she is even able to release the key (really I was watching), there is a "bing" sound and she says we are approved for $2000. Have a nice day.

THE GIRL DIDN'T RELEASE THE KEY. That, I think was the fastest credit check I have ever withnessed. I think that their Credit App is directly attached to their Dart Board App.

We get the oven on Wednesday - I will let you know how the chicken fingers turn out. Oh, for those of you south of the border (the US if you are still pondering the globe), I think you call them "boneless chicken wings".

WOW Stuff

I have nothing. This weekend has been a blurr.