{"id":6475,"date":"2006-01-05T21:15:08","date_gmt":"2006-01-05T21:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/01\/05\/brokendown\/"},"modified":"2006-01-05T21:15:08","modified_gmt":"2006-01-05T21:15:08","slug":"brokendown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/01\/05\/brokendown\/","title":{"rendered":"Broken-Down"},"content":{"rendered":"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> < 1<\/span> min<\/span><\/span>

While waiting in the customer service line at Kmart the other day–New Year’s
\nEve afternoon–I had time to notice the recall posters taped along the top of
\nthe divider behind the counter. I suppose it’s a formality–some kind of
\ndiscount retailer requirement forcing them to post about malfunctioning products
\nthat’ve spent time on their shelves. The line was ten people long; I had
\nplenty of time to look around, watch folks tug apart gigantic bins for storing
\naway their holiday decor, listen to a cryptic exchange between two customers
\nusing Western Union to wire cash afar, and read over the fax-blob postings about
\nfailed products.<\/p>\n

Among the recalls was a crock pot we received as a gift a few years
\nago: a Holmes
\nSlow Cooker<\/a>. I used it in early December for beef\/vegetable
\nimprov. Just about anything slow cooked with salt and pepper turns out
\nokay. Consequently, I cook in HSC all the time. I’ve never returned
\na product for recall. Never. But now I’ll follow the instructions on the
\nU.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission web site, "immediately stop using the
\nproduct and contact The Holmes Group to receive instructions on receiving a
\nreplacement base." It is a crock pot, after all, and when I looked up
\ncrock just now, I verified that it refers both to an open, earthen jar and also to a nonsense message. In fact, it associates etymologically with the
\nNorwegian krake<\/i>, meaning sickly animal, and the Middle Dutch
\nkraecke<\/i>, or broken-down horse. So I guess this makes the
\nrecall seem imminent, as fateful as the contents of a slow cooker being, well,
\nhot, which is among the complaints waged against the device. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u23f3 Approximate reading time: <\/span> < 1<\/span> min<\/span><\/span>While waiting in the customer service line at Kmart the other day–New Year’s Eve afternoon–I had time to notice the recall posters taped along the top of the divider behind the counter. I suppose it’s a formality–some kind of discount retailer requirement forcing them to post about malfunctioning products that’ve spent time on their shelves….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[164],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-under_a_bushel"],"yoast_head":"\nBroken-Down - Earth Wide Moth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.earthwidemoth.com\/blog\/2006\/01\/05\/brokendown\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Broken-Down - Earth Wide Moth\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u23f3 Approximate reading time: < 1 minWhile waiting in the customer service line at Kmart the other day–New Year’s Eve afternoon–I had time to notice the recall posters taped along the top of the divider behind the counter. 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