Library Notes
September 9, 2004
By Pansy Hundley, Librarian.
Ya'll remember that brand-spanking-new Murray mower that I purchased back about April? That NEW mower that I had so much fun "assembling"? That NEW mower that would finally start for me with about one or two pulls on that cord? You remember that mower?
Well, I got that same mower out the other day to trim around those places I couldn't get to with the riding mower. I pulled on that cord once and that was it. That cord stuck and would not pull out again, no matter what I tried. I was fit to be tied. A new mower, used about six times, and the cord was stuck and wouldn't move.
I called Wal-Mart, and probably in a disgusted voice, told the man I got hold of, (not literally hold of, and it's probably a good thing!) the problem. He said bring it in and all the gas would have to be out of it. That was just great, because I had just filled it to the brim to mow. Have you ever tried to drain all of the gas out of a mower? You should try it for entertainment some time, it is such great fun!
I knew that thing had to go in the trunk of my car and I set about trying to get it there. I had to take the screws out of the handles and let them down for the trunk to close. I had to lift it and get it in just a certain way to fit. After some finagling and propping I got it in and the trunk shut. I dusted off my hands and proceeded to Wal-Mart.
When I got there, the first wrong thing was they directed me to a woman manager. Now, ladies, I don't mean to insult you, but if I'm talking to someone about buying a car or lawnmower trouble, or anything mechanical, I want a man to talk to, someone that knows what they are talking about (even though some of them don't).
She called some young man who didn't seem to know much either. They wanted to know where the mower was and then I should pull my car around to the door. This I did and I helped him unload the mower, after assuring him it was empty of gas. He pushed it to the Service Desk, got the serial no. off it, then proceeded to tell me that Wal-Mart's warranty was good for only ninety days and I was over the ninety days, naturally, by a few days.
The Briggs-Stratton warranty was what I would have to use. I would have to take it to someone to check the mower. And they gave me the name of one there in McKinney.
In total disgust, I said to the young man "Then why did we unload it out of the car?" His answer was, "I had to get the serial no." To which I replied "You could have gotten that without unloading it."
So -- he pushed it out the door again and the finagling began again. That silly mower had to be put back into my trunk, in just the right way to fit - again. And I had to keep that intelligent young man from tearing the rubber seal off my trunk as he tried to get that mower in and me trying to tell him how it would have to fit and where to prop and where to put the handles.
The next chapter will have to wait until next week, because space is gone. We will continue the "saga of the NEW Mower" then. I did not plunk down my $100 to go 'round and 'round with this mower
While I sit here and stew, let me tell you about a new book, just out, by J.A. Jance. The title is "Day of the Dead". It does not have J.P. Beaumont as the main character in it, but a character that was in a previous book of hers some time ago, I believe, Brandon Walker,
"For more than thirty years, the case has remained stone cold-----the brutal murder of a local Papago girl, her butchered body found stuffed into a large cooler that was left on the side of Highway 86. No one ever paid for the horrific crime . . . except, that is, the victim's loved ones, who suffer to this day.
Brandon Walker, once the sheriff of Pima County, Arizona, no longer feels he has purpose. A reluctant retiree living in the long shadow of his wife, Diana Ladd, a successful author of true-crime books, he is bored with golf, and more so with life. Salvation, though, comes with an invitation to join the ranks of The Last Chance, an exclusive nationwide fraternity of former cops and forensic experts who look into unsolved murders that have baffled local law enforcement agencies. And one such case is staring Brandon in the face with cold, dead, entreating eyes -- a murder investigation that may have been mishandled by his department when he was a young lawman.
The trail of a sadistic, calculating, and blood-chillingly efficient killer soon leads Brandon into a strange world at the unlikely border between forensic science and tribal mysticism: a place where evil hides behind a perfect façade. Now the seeds of terror sown three decades earlier have bloomed and are bearing awful fruit. A forgotten homicide in the Arizona desert is only the beginning of the nightmare that is about to ensnare a diligent ex-cop and his family, for Brandon Walker is the only one still alive who can unravel a blood knot of terror and obsession that will free a dark truth more frightening than he ever imagined."