After paying three years of premiums to the home warranty company, we decided to contact them for some repair work. Matt called them up and described the problems with the dish washer, the range, the refrigerator, and the water heater. He was told that they were all covered under the warranty. I was ecstatic and patiently waiting for the technician’s arrival last Friday.
At 10 AM, James, the technician, arrived. I opened the door with joy and let him in. After some brief description of the problems with each appliance, he began to examine them and wrote down some notes, serial numbers, model numbers, and any other numbers he could possibly get. And then, he told me that he had to call the warranty company to go over his findings and give them all the numbers to obtain the authorization numbers.
45 minutes later, James gave me the cheerful news. “Denied. Denied. Denied.” They will only repair the fridge and I have to pay him $200 for the services. My head was spinning. I vaguely saw my grandma talking to me in her comforting voice, “Come with me now, Carl. You can die now. Come with me. It is a better world here.” I asked James if he could wait for a few minutes while I called this prestigious company. “I can’t believe this. They told us on the phone that these would be covered. How can they do this?”
I dialed the number with my hands shaking terribly. After being transferred multiple times from human to the phone menu, and then back to human, and on to another human, I finally got to talk to the Customer Care.
I asked him why I was denied coverage. Mr. Customer Care read some paragraphs of the contract back to me and said, “That’s why you are denied.” About twenty minutes later, the last thing I heard from Mr. Customer Care was, “If you don’t pay the service fees, we’ll suspend your coverage.” I asked him, “Coverage? What coverage? Are you living in the twilight zone?” Click! I hung up.
What a magical word, denied. I wondered who actually invented this word. Pure genius. When you say the word, you almost feel that all the powers in this universe have been bestowed upon you. Remember when we were kids, our requests were often denied. That is because our parents enjoyed that brief moment of triumph and looked at us collapsing in front of them as our little wishes were crushed and shattered.
On a Saturday afternoon,
“Mom, can I go to Dave’s house this afternoon?”
“DENIED. Go back to your room and do your homework.”
In the toy store,
“Mom, can we buy that? I really want a train set.”
“DENIED. Your toys are everywhere in the house. One day, I will throw them all out.”
At the dinner table,
“Mom, can I not eat the vegetables? They make me feel like throwing up.”
“DENIED. You are going to eat everything I put in your plate. SILENCE.”
On a warm sunny day in the spring,
“Mom, can I not wear the coat? It’s too hot.”
“DENIED. Wear that coat or you’ll catch a cold.”
My friend, Linda, denied her little toddler’s privilege of watching TV. She puts him to bed at 7, so he can’t watch any TV. I wish I had a child so I could spew the word to him ten times a day. “Denied. Denied. Denied.”
TV? Don’t even think.
Chewing bone? Are you crazy, Callie?
Food? Food? HeRRo!
