It’s A (Lint) Trap!

(I am working returns when one of the customer service guys asks me to take a call. Picking up the phone, I speak to a rather nice, young-sounding woman who notes that she purchased a washer/dryer set when our store opened about six months ago, and everything ran fine until just recently. Now she’s having trouble with the dryer. She wants to know if her dryer is covered under warranty and what we might do to fix it. Since our policy is to find out as much about the problem before sorting out if it is covered or not, I ask a few questions.)

Me: “Does the dryer turn on?”

Woman: “Oh, yes. It’ll turn on just fine.”

Me: “Is it not heating or drying the clothing?”

Woman: “Oh, that works fine, I suppose.”

Me: “Well, that pretty much covers it. What exactly is the nature of your problem?”

Woman: “Well, it starts fine, but every time we use it, the d*** thing catches on fire.”

Me: “Fire?”

Woman: “Yeah. Fire. We have to shut it off and douse it, or it’d burn the house down.”

Me: “Uh… Yeah. Just curious, you know to empty the lint trap, right?”

Woman: “What’s a lint trap?”

(At that point I realized that not everyone should own appliances.)