C Day
Tomorrow (already today for some of you) – Thursday, March 31, Year of our Lord 2011, is officially “C Day with GE and BB.”
Before you turn away, stay with me a while longer. Some guarantees don’t mean much. I promise this blog takes a twist and has a different theme than the last. I’m done whining for now.For readers unsure of what I’m writing about, GE stands for “General Electric,” BB means Best Buy. C Day will be the day I see what’s going to happen next. This is the deal, although it’s not a good one. A new GE dryer I bought from Best Buy seven months ago worked one and one-half times. Then it went pouf and hasn’t worked since.Between the two businesses, I’ve now had more service calls than months I’ve had the dryer. One thing I haven’t had is dry clothes – at least not dried in that dryer. Because the dryer doesn’t work.By now almost all parts have been replaced. We may be replacing one the second time around but I cannot say for sure. For the record, I have an extended warranty besides the dryer being under the original factory guarantee.But will the dryer work come sunset tomorrow? Will the dryer, as I requested, be replaced by a brand new one? If so, will that new one work or will I go through this ordeal all over again? Will C Day be F Day – the day the dryer finally gets fixed? Or will it be one more day when I’m told, “Just one more part, and we should have this baby working in no time, Ma’am.”I could have dried all my laundry faster by pointing my hair dryer at my wet laundry. There’s no place to hang clothes to dry where I live.Anyone up for predictions? Let me know. I predict that “C Day” will be “L Day” – Lemon Day. It will be one more service call that ends in the dryer not getting fixed, and me not receiving another dryer from General Electric, a dryer that works. Maybe it will be “E Day” – Excuse Day, the day I hear another BS reason for the new dryer not working. It might be PTB Day (Pass the Buck Day), the day GE blames someone else because the dryer they manufactured, sold to Best Buy, and then Best Buy sold to me doesn’t work.Or it may be HDDSTIA Day, the day I act on the recommendation from the supervisor at GE who suggested I buy another new dryer from them and I’d get a discount from GE if I did. HDDSTIA stands for how dumb does she think I am.I’m not holding my breath. I’m getting better at living in the present moment. Tomorrow isn’t here yet. It never comes. It’s always today. I am curious though, a curiosity tempered with low expectations about results.Before I go any further, it’s time to clarify things. See, everything is relative and now’s the time to put the non-working dryer issue in perspective. With all the hurting people in Japan, all the grieving people in our own country, our state, city, block and maybe our home, this problem goes in the category of “mildly annoying incidents that happen or haven’t yet been solved.”I feel ripped off, had, lied to, blown off and dismissed. So what? In the scheme of things, that’s not much. Doesn’t compare to losing my son. Doesn’t compare to the couple I recently heard about where the husband, instead of receiving his promised retirement plan, got hosed when he retired after thirty devoted years. His wife then became ill. After both of them working hard all their lives, they lost their home, she lost her health, and they left town with six hundred bucks. It was cold that evening, even for California in the desert. The woman had sold most of her belongings to raise money for food and necessities. She wore nylon stockings under shorts to keep her legs warm. She didn’t have a jacket to put on her arms.Now that’s a problem. My heart goes out to them. I wish I’d known before the situation passed the point of no return. I could have blogged about them instead of myself and the dryer that doesn’t work.It’s not just the recession, although that’s made things worse. Bad things happen to people, happen all the time – things people don’t deserve. Most of the time it’s not that we don’t see it coming. We can feel it coming at us at one hundred miles an hour, but don’t know what to do. Or like a deer, we’re frozen in the headlights. Paralyzed, can’t move.Judging other people who get slammed with serious problems can be easy to do. It can give us a false sense of security and immunity about life. If the other people did something wrong and that’s why the bad thing happened to them, then we know how to keep ourselves safe. We won’t do the bad thing they did. But that’s not how it works. If it can happen to him, her or them, it can happen to us. We aren’t immune.Radical faith is when we can know this – know how vulnerable we are – and still walk around, in the moment, feeling at peace and trusting Life and our Higher Power.I don’t want to hear about being tested, or about what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. When we’re in crushing emotional pain, some of us would prefer it if Life killed us instead of giving us more strength. Listen carefully. That’s not permission for anyone to hurt themselves or anyone else. All I’m doing is talking about the things we think and how we can feel.In the overall scheme of things my dryer problem becomes a mere irritation, less than a flat tire when I’m covered by Triple A. I’m not discounting the issue. I will, with Life’s help, eventually resolve it. But it’s not killing me. I’m not doubled over with pain.Many people are being hurt, harmed, killed or crumpled up with pain. May blessings and good things pour down in abundance on each of you. May tomorrow be the best day – tomorrow March 31, 2011 – you’ve ever had. May gifts come from nowhere. May you feel cared for and loved, your heart be at peace, and your clothes dry and warm.I’ll let you know what happens on C Day with GE and BB. Meanwhile, maybe we could all devote C Day to a world-wide meditation day, focusing on blessings, getting needs met, abundance, healing, miracles, and relief from pain for the masses of hurting people and sentient beings in our world.My best,Melody BeattieStayed tuned – tuned in with each other for good things and love for our neighbor, wherever he or she lives.
We can’t change other people but maybe for one day if we join together in unison we can change the world. That would be even better than warm, dry clothes.
C Day could be, if we wanted it to be, Care About Our Neighbor Day and that would be good.
