I hate Snapper

Let me tell you one thing you never want to do. Don't lose the key to your snowblower. Now, I could do an entire post on why one would ever have the key anywhere OTHER than in the snowblower, but I digress...

We had a good 6 inches of snow this week, and Omar, with the eager assistance of 6-year-old Max, shoveled our entire driveway given that the sparkling new snowblower is little more than a very big paper weight until we get this situation figured out. So, yesterday, on my day off, I decided to be the best wife in the world and find a new key, or die trying. It was closer to the latter.

I started by calling Home Depot. They basically giggled at me and told me to call Snapper. Go ahead and visit snapper.com, and see if YOU can find a phone number anywhere. The only thing on the "contact us" link is a place to send an email off into cyberspace hoping to get a reply before March. I opted to skip that.

So, I looked at the 'dealers' link. Sears. Great. Sears will help me out, right? Well, not the first one I called, because they don't have Parts and Services. The second one I called needed the model number, which I had not been able to find. So, I tromp outside after leaving a crying baby inside (exacerbated by the barking dog that scared the poo out of him, literally), follow his instructions for where I need to look, and tell him the model. I then take my cold fanny back inside. "How about a serial number?" Repeat the baby, the crying, the barking. Back inside. "What was the model number again?" Seriously? Repeat again.

He informs me he can see what kind of snowthrower (not 'blower,' you Oklahoma rube) I have, but his computer is telling him nothing about the engine or what kind of key I need. "So, what do I do now?" I ask the man. "Don't know" is his incredibly helpful reply.

He gives me the only number he has for Snapper, which is their Manuals department. It's worth a try, right?... other than the fact it is disconnected.

Thank you Sears. So, next I move to the local hardware guys that sell Snappers. I tell the man who answers the phone my sad tale, and ask him what I should do next. He says "Well, what you should do is come down here and buy one!" "Really? You have one... you don't need to know the model, the serial number, any of that???" Nope. He informs me they are quite generic and I should head his way. Yippee! I'm in the car...

Now, for any of you that know Minneapolis, a journey to Penn and 31st North is an adventure in and of itself. I talk to someone other than the man who I spoke to on the phone, and he heads to the back to get the key. He returns. "Ma'am, we are out of those..."

[picture woman holding a baby in a car seat, head exploding]

The good news is that the man I spoke to on the phone overhears this. He says "Oh, no. You hang tight [insert 'little lady' here, even though he didn't actually say it], I'll find you one." He reappears in 10 minutes with an oily, tired lookin' red key. He sells it to me for $1.50, and I'm not entirely sure he didn't just steal it from the house down the block. But at this point, I don't really care. The reports of 6 more inches of snow for the weekend have minimized my guilt of buying a possibly hot piece of plastic.

I am finally home, ready to proudly display the fruits of my labor to my adoring and appreciative husband. Yeah... it doesn't fit.

So, I spent much of my day off doing this. I am no closer to having a working snowTHROWER than I was before all of this... but later that night I thought I would at least get some sympathy from the hubby for my troubles. I start to tell him the tale.

He turns to me with a semi-horrified look on his face as I begin. "Hon... I found the key this morning before I left for work."

I can't stand it...