Immersion Blenders, Part 2

I am more than a little bummed.

See, CSN Stores offered me a gift certificate (and then to do a giveaway for another gift certificate next month) and I am not one to turn down free things for me AND for you. You may thank me later.

And after approximately a million of you were all “just buy an immersion blender” last week, I decided to listen to the Internet and use my gift certificate to get one.

And it arrived in the mail just a few days later and I nearly wept with joy when I pulled it out of the packaging and laid it carefully in my kitchen drawer and dreamed about how I was going to use it to make some divine chicken enchilada soup (I made it last year and we loved it, and that was when I had to do the annoying thing where you pour it into your actual blender and there is splattering and mess and what have you and also, after Rhiannon’s comment, I’m totally paranoid about CRACKING my glass blender when I do this).

So, anyway, I was excited, is what I’m getting at. I’d ordered the Kalorik Sunny Morning Hand Blender because it was the one that America’s Test Kitchen ranked as the #1 and apparently Cook’s Illustrated also had many good things to say about it. I chopped up my vegetables and let them cook for a while and waited anxiously for them to be soft so I could use my new! life-changing! appliance.

Right, you know where this is going. Pull out your Kleenex for the sob fest that is about to commence.

People, it was such a disappointment. It immediately splashed hot soup on my arm. Strike 1. Then, unlike the lovely one I’d borrowed from Bart’s cousins, I couldn’t just leave it in the soup and move it around while it was submerged. I had to keep lifting it out of the pot and putting it down again in a new spot. This did not thrill me. Strike 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6. And then the motor started smelling like it was burning out. I mean, really, I was blending for less than a minute (also, the borrowed one did a pot with FAR more vegetables in it in about 30 seconds and I should have done LESS because it turned out so ridiculously smooth and I like it a little chunky).

And now I’m left here to ponder whether or not to return it. But, see, if I return it, I have to pay to ship it back. And also they’ll deduct the cost of shipping and handling from my refund, even though I got free shipping. And, suddenly I’m paying money out of pocket for something that was supposed to be free. Is it worse to just pay the $12-15 it would be to get a new one that was better (of course, now I’m mega paranoid that whichever I would choose would ALSO be junk-y) which is more than HALF the cost of the stupid thing in the first place or do I just deal with the fact that I now have an immersion blender but it’s not a very good one at all? Or do I just sit here and feel peeved? (And think about how ordering things online stresses me out because of all the SHIPPING!)

Yes, I know. I’m complaining about free stuff. But, really, is it so much to ask that my free stuff work?

And, of course, it’s not CSN’s fault that this product they happen to stock appears to be a piece of junk and that I happened to be foolish enough to choose THAT particular product of the gazillion things they sell, and I know that shipping is not free and. . . and. . .I’m just totally bummed about the whole thing. That’s all. (Kalorik, on the other hand? This IS their fault).

Also, I’m saying that if, when I do the giveaway next month, you happen to win? Do not order Kalorik’s immersion blender. Unless you happen to like the salty taste of tears in your soup.