Sleepless in Long Island

I just returned the Montel Williams Health Master Blender. Thirteen dollars for return shipping, but, honestly I would have paid anything just to get the damn thing out of the house. It was sitting on my dining room table for three days - brand new and not even unpacked completely. I couldn’t even lift it out of the tight styrofoam packaging. When I removed the outside box to reveal all the pieces, I found an instructional CD as well as a booklet of instructions for assembly. That did it for me. Anything that complicated was too scary for me. And I feared that I would never be able to get it packed exactly right when I wanted to return it, so I just left it sitting there.

On the second day, waving his arm over the dining room table full of boxes and blender parts wrapped in plastic sticking out of styrofoam packaging, my husband asked,  “What’s all this mess?”

“Just ignore it; I’m returning it,” I answered.

I wouldn’t even try it for the sixty day trial period. I knew the moment I hung up the phone, after the woman took my order, that I would be returning it. Even before it arrived, I was thinking, I wonder how much it’s going to cost to return the darn thing.

I’ve done this before. I wake up at 3:00 in the morning, roll over and realize that I still haven’t digested my dinner. Something is wrong somewhere in my digestive tract and I feel like if I could just sit up and burp everything would be alright. Except, when I sit up, I realize the dinner I had at 7:00 PM isn’t going anywhere fast.

I stumble downstairs, boil some water for a cup of peppermint tea, settle into the recliner and find that position that will make it tolerable for the next hour or so until I can burp or do whatever gastronomical emission is necessary to get this sludge moving down the pipes and on its way.

At 3:00 AM there isn’t much to watch when you have the cheapest cable TV program money will buy – channels 2 through 21. But that particular night I hit on something big. Montel Williams was doing a show on the Montel Williams Health Master Blender. I watched in awe for almost an hour while they pulverized vegetables, fruits, nuts and even a piece of brick. Yes, a piece of brick was actually ground down to grey sand. I leaned forward for a closer look and burped. Ahhh

I was feeling better already and thought, this must be fate that I’m up at this hour to see this amazing Health Master Blender! I reached for a pencil and wrote the phone number down, but I wouldn’t call just yet; I wasn’t 100% convinced that I needed another appliance in the house. After all, I’m not new at this. I’ve done this before. Sitting up all alone at night, you order stuff just to feel like you’re not the only one awake at this god forsaken hour. Who else can you call at 3:30 in the morning besides LL Bean or the Health Master Blender order taker?

A few months earlier, while I was trying to digest another heavy dinner, I ordered the amazing Mandolin Slicer-Dicer-Shredder. I knew I had to have this appliance. The guy doing the demo was slicing vegetables with the speed and accuracy of a Samurai and spinning around the kitchen like a whirling dervish. Watching him, you would swear he had more than two arms working at once. In a mere ten minutes he had an entire kitchen table and two countertops full of an assortment of vegetables, fruits, cheeses, olives, hard-boiled eggs and even a rubber ball.

I never bothered to return the Amazing Mandolin. After slicing my fingers up just trying to get it out of the packaging to put it together, then mashing every vegetable I tried to slice into a mushy blob, I threw all the pieces into a large paper bag and tossed it into the garbage. I couldn’t risk losing a finger trying to repackage it and I didn’t want my husband to know I had ordered such a stupid thing in the first place. Except for a few band aids on my fingertips, that I explained as quilting mishaps, I left no trace of my foolish late night purchase.

But now Montel was introducing real people who had used the Health Master Blender and lost 30, 40, even 50 pounds, drinking nutritious vegetable smoothies. How fortunate I was to be up at this hour, to witness this amazing appliance that would change my life forever. I was dialing, credit card in hand, so excited I could feel a little ripple of gas escaping. Ahhh, more relief.

“Yes, I want to order the Montel Williams Health Master Blender! I’ll pay in the four easy installments,” I said, when the sweet talking southern woman answered the phone.

“If you pay in full tonight, we’ll upgrade you to the professional blender – the chef’s model– at no extra charge..”

“Yes! I’ll pay in full tonight.” Burp! “ Excuse me.”

When it came time for me to begin reading off the numbers on my VISA card, I faltered slightly and began asking more questions: Can you really grind up a brick? How strong is the motor? What kind of warranty is offered? Is the container glass or plastic? Is it very heavy? How much does the whole thing weigh? What are the exact dimensions? and, finally, Where is the blender made? Because if it’s made in China, I don’t want it. I don’t trust anything coming out of China!

All of my questions were answered satisfactorily except the last one. After she put me on hold for quite a while, the phone assistant finally came back on the line and admitted that no one there at the switchboard knew where the unit was manufactured.

“Why don’t you just order the blender,” she said, sounding more exhausted than I was. “We have a 60-day, no questions asked, return policy.”

And true to their sales marketing, there were no questions asked when I called to return the Montel Williams Master Blender that had arrived three days earlier in an oversized, very heavy box that had Made In China stamped in bold lettering and in plain sight.

With the Montel Williams Master Blender out of the house, at last, I know I’ll sleep much better tonight.