Limited Lifetime Warranty

My neighbors took a trip this week. It doesn’t matter where they went, what matters is what happened while they were gone. They have no set schedule, they come and go at different times; sometimes she is gone and sometimes he is gone and sometimes they both are gone; you just never know. Unless, that is, you are watching them. I’ve lived next door for so long that I know when the house is empty even though they don’t always tell me when they are tripping. This time someone must have been watching as they loaded the car to drive away because sometime between when they left and when they returned, thieves violated their space. I am a vigilant neighbor. I always notice the new cars cruising through or the new people who walk into the area or the unnatural amount of visitors that may arrive at any given house, but this time I missed it. It makes me assume that all this occurred after midnight because this past week I have been restless; up and roaming all hours of the night. The thieves crawled over a very high solid wood privacy fence, hoisted two of my neighbor’s bicycles over the fence and made off with them. It is my opinion that these thieves watched them leave therefore the assumption being that the scumbags live in our neighborhood. This is not the first time property has been stolen from them. Fortunately it has only happened once to me but since that occurrence I keep everything under lock and key. Whether the property will ever be found is anyone’s guess but if you have ever had it happen to you, you know how violated you felt and how angry you were.
Spendable money is hard to come by, especially this day and time, therefore when you make a purchase, not matter how big or small, you want what you have purchased to last. Many products these days come with a “limited” lifetime warranty and inevitably when the product purchased fails, the cause isn’t covered by warranty. Every year I save for a watering system but have not managed to save enough yet so I have gerry rigged my own system in my back garden. I have wire tied sprinkler hoses to the top of my fences and it works pretty well but every year one or more of the hoses fails and needs replacing and every year they are more expensive. Save the receipts just in case but during the course of a year they disappear and besides if you saved every receipt where would you put them? This year I bought Craftsman. Good brand name, good product, been around forever. They have not been out but two months and already one has failed. Not only the hoses failed but the appliance gods must be angry with me also. Ice gets stuck in the chute of the refrigerator; aggravating but no biggie, sometimes the water fails to work too. The dishwasher has quit cleaning the dishes but since it is only me I can certainly hand wash. The microwave has started making weird noises; it still works but I’m expecting failure at any time and the oven, my eight year old oven bites the dust every few months now. First it was a burned out element then came the wires on the back that kept shorting out and I kept repairing. Ovens shouldn’t do that but who can afford a new one? I’m not saying a word about the things that do work; don’t want to aggravate that appliance god or wake up a sleeping imp. Hopefully my repairs will last until I get a new job and can afford to purchase new appliances.
The dog days are headed our way; temps in the 108 range are predicted but hey, if these predictions are as accurate as the rain predictions, we may have nothing to worry about.