Broken Stuff

A couple weeks ago, my house phone broke. I don't know what happened to it. It seems it was one of those mysterious demises that occasionally happen to things around my house. We do have an entity that lives here named "Not Me.' For years now, whenever something has broken and I've asked who did it, there would be a duet coming from my kids. "Not me!" they would say. Not Me has broken a lot of things over the years.

Well, apparently Not Me broke my cordless house phone and so I trotted off to Best Buy and bought another.

I go neither cheap nor extravagant. I tend to buy middle of the road, price wise. So the phone I purchased, tho not dear, was nor cheap either. Now here's the rub. I cannot get it to work. The damned thing's handset blinks incessantly. I am not talking about a non obtrusive little dainty light, either. The entire top of the handset blinks like a neon sign. I have tried to get it to turn off. I have poured over the instruction book that came with it,and there is no reference to this happening or how to stop it. It has blinked for two weeks now and it is driving me crazy.

On top of that, I can't figure out how to work the answering machine. I have phoned myself repeatedly, allowing the answering machine to pick up. But when I play it back, all I get is the dial tone. I hate this phone.

I would normally return it but, tho I have the receipt, I have tossed the box. So I am up a creek without a paddle..and without a phone too.

Did i mention that I hate this phone?

Then, yesterday, I was wiping off the burner plate on my coffee maker when I heard a snap. Apparently I am stronger than I knew because I snapped the burner right off the base. I do have a nice percolator, but I get up really early in the morning and do not feel like fussing with it and then waiting a half hour for it to do its thing.

So today I am going small appliance shopping. I am getting a new coffee maker and a new cordless phone. This ticks me off because I don't like spending money I have relegated for something else. Like my nails. Or my hair. Or clothes or my gym. Me stuff.