From the Jill Schwartz Memorial Library here in the wild of Connecticut, this is obscure season four in American tragedy.

I'm your host, your friend, you're ear lover, and literary mansplainer in chief,

Michael, Ian Black. You may hear some difference in the audio quality of this episode. It may be for the

better. It may be for the worse. I don't know yet, but Robin will surely write me either a email of compliment or a derisive email of utter scorn when she hears back this audio.

I'm recording this on a Tuesday evening.

I've been very busy, you know, with the move and unpacking and waiting for certain

deliveries to arrive or waiting for certain people to show up at my door to fix broken things.

And it has been an unmitigated disaster. Time after time. Things happen in my home.

People show up. They don't have the right equipment. There's missing hardware. Things arrive

damaged or broken. I'll give you, I'll give you some quick examples. Three quick examples.

Okay, lest you think I'm just making this shit up.

I am not.

The house that we bought had no washer or dryer.

So we bought a stackable washer and dryer.

It arrived, and it was damaged.

And so we sent it away.

And they said, we'll bring a new one right away. A few days later, they show up with a new one. I wasn't home at the time. I was in the city doing city things. When I arrived home, they had already put the thing in the washer dryer space. I guess you call that a laundry room. Turns out it also was damaged.

And neither the delivery people nor Martha had noticed that it was damaged, but it was pretty

badly damaged.

And so that went away.

And then we had to have a third one delivered, and that one was acceptable.

But the fact that you have to go three times, three times to get an

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