It’s Sunday night. You’re sitting in bed, with your laptop propped up on pillows as you watch Game of Thrones and then you smell it. It’s surely smoke. Burning what?? Due to your Mom’s warnings, you never leave food on the flame, but enough wondering- you jump from the sheets and tear down the hall, only to find the smoke emanating from the dryer! You reach past the swirls of charcoaled air and cautiously open the dryer door. With one hand, you wave wind in its direction as your other hand dials Max the repairman.

Then you get the next dose of bad news: Max has retired to Palm Beach (surely on the mint he’s made fixing finicky appliances.) You post an SOS on Insta, “Anyone have someone to fix my burnt dryer?” After some time, you get a number.

As you dial, you berate yourself for not having Max come in for a maintenance visit, but you never wanted to spend money on that.

After leaving multiple vms and texts, he gets back. But – he’s apparently not in the mood to gently walk through the process. He spits out quickly that your dryer repair can be around $570!

You begin to sweat and a barrage of questions pile up in your racing mind. Should you let this guy in your house? Will he be charging a separate service charge? How long will this take? You rely on your machine to dry multiple loads each week and don’t have too many door knobs in your apartment on which to hang dry sopping towels and wet jeans. Should you just buy a new dryer? Hell – you spent precious time to purchase this one just a few years ago!

Abruptly he piles on some more info, “New safety coils will put you out $160-$280. A clogged vent or duct will be $75-$150 to fix. A drum belt will be around 15 bucks and a thermostat $100. And he can’t come today.”

You were praying it was just a ten dollar fuse fix or something inconsequential, but judging from the stench lingering in the air and your bad luck at missing the second part of “the best show in the world,” you’re thinking the worst.

Reasons 1,2, 3, 4, and 5 to buy continuing service coverage for your washer and dryer have been hinted at above:

1. Repairing appliances can be quite costly. Money can be saved with a small, monthly warranty charge.
2. Rather than unknown service people entering your home, trained, competent, and vetted repair people will do the fixing.
3. Instead of passing on maintenance, you will feel comfortable upkeeping your appliances and not have to deal with emergencies that could’ve been avoided.
4. You will always have fluffy towels, soft jeans, and clean clothes.
5. Life is so much more relaxing without worrying about breaking and fixing your sh&*T!

While the service guy’s cigarette odor adds to your already polluted air, he rattles off washing machine repair costs. (Seems these are fun trivia facts for him.) “A Rubber door gasket is $200-$300. A Lid Switch is $140 for a top-loading machine. Could be more. Water inlet valve issues are $160.”

Then he decides to be nice and throws you a bone: “Hey, he says, why don’t you check out a CYA warranty coverage. It’s very popular. You just pay a small fee plus a deductible and you can cover almost anything in your home.”

Since you don’t have time between your two jobs, three hobbies, and socializing with multiple family members and friends, you begin to consider his words and read on. That is, after you open your windows for ventilation and finish watching what happens to King’s Landing!