Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, October 4, 1993                   TAG: 9310060322
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Ben Beagle
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

AND IS IT ANY WONDER WY WE DON'T BUY AMERICAN

You have just dropped 600 bucks for, say, a new wall oven and it looks great and works fine - although you wish a certain party would try it out for lasagna sometime.

You ha ve a year's warranty, but three months later, you get this form letter:

``Dear Superheterodyne Family Member:

``I'm really worried about you because time is running out. That's right, Mr. Burgle, you have only a few days left to save 20 percent when you extend your service warranty with a Superheterodyne Service Contract.

``I think you will agree that you owe yourself and your family the security this would provide. We at Superheterodyne hate to see any of our family members in debtor's prison and children left without a home.''

There are nine months left on the original warranty, but this letter suggests that the product you have just bought has been designed to start destroying itself some 16 hours and eight minutes after the original warranty has expired.

If you are the type to worry, you immediately see the day when you will have to get into armed robbery to get the money for repairs to the oven so that your family will get all the lasagna it needs.

You worry about this although there are only two of you at home, your wife eats like a bird and you could go without food for three weeks and still be over-caloried.

Some of these people include examples of how much it will cost when your appliance breaks down out of warranty. These are very scary figures and if you look at them, you will go develop a tic, feel like screaming a lot, and tend to cry at the worst possible times.

I peeked one time and saw what it would cost to repair my dot matrix printer and I wanted to wander in the woods until my faith came back.

Since then, I've tried to say something nice to my printer every day.

I am tired of this and I'm not going to take it anymore. I'm getting up my own form letter. You are welcome to copy it and use it yourself:

``Dear Superheterodyne Service Contract Manager:

``I think you ought to be ashamed of yourself, trying to scare a couple of extra bucks out of decent people, and in the process eroding even further the confidence that people in this nation have in good old American know-how.

``And people wonder why everybody buys foreign cars.

``Of course I realize that your appliance may have been put together in Taiwan, but I think you get my drift here.

``I feel I must make a stand here, and this will inform you that you can take that three-year contract that costs $75.09 and put it in the nearest trash can. I don't care if my family ever has lasagna again. We'll just use the microwave and live on baked potatoes, until we figure out all those other buttons.

``Let me assure you that I am not a violent person, but if my oven breaks 16 hours and eight minutes after the original warranty expires, I'm coming looking for you, good buddy.

``I don't like to talk about it much, but I am a highly trained jungle fighter who gets very nervous around extended warranty protection.''