ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 8, 1996 TAG: 9601110019
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
Now's the time most good Americans start to fill out the warranty forms for the stuff they got for Christmas.
We do this despite the fact that if we read the entire booklet that came with our Superheterodyne toaster oven, we know we will have to send a nonworking Superheterodyne appliance to a repair shop in Peru, as in South America - shipping charges $230.19.
Good sense tells us that it would be cheaper and less stressful to buy another brand of toaster oven, but Americans love warranties.
There's something dark and troubling in the way we insist on filling out these things, although we know that if the fructating energizer falls off your Little Bennie Drill and Embossing Kit, it's not covered.
No. I'm not going to fool around with any of you who don't know what a fructating energizer is. Go do the Jumble, for Pete's sake.
The warranty forms have blocks in which you are supposed to write your name and address.
I know this is simple for a lot of you. But some of us are very nervous, and we don't stay within the blocks and print wrong things in wrong places and become depressed because we are away from the office and don't have any white-out junk to correct our mistakes.
(And shame on you if you steal white-out from the office. That's no way to get to be assistant to the president. You know who you are.)
After you get by the blocks, you have to answer all of these questions - which seem pretty dumb, but are part of what they call "demographics."
The one that gets me crazy is the one that asks you to check all of your hobbies or, as they say, ``interests.''
There isn't a single question that applies to me. I hate vegetable gardens. I don't go to a lot of concerts. I certainly don't play the cello. With my legs and knees, they'd have a crippled corpse on the nearest ski slope.
I'd like to add a page of my own in which I would list serial murder, larceny and armed robbery among my ``interests.'' I'll bet that would blow up their demographics machine.
I haven't done that because I don't want to get arrested. But I wish they'd lighten up and list a couple of ``interests'' that I enjoy. I don't want to lie about enjoying cabinet-making anymore. Or needlepoint.
Just once, I wish they'd list something like, say, sipping a little bourbon and water and watching reruns of ``Cagney and Lacey.''
LENGTH: Short : 49 linesby CNB