do church ladies get better customer service?

I'm only asking because Williams-Sonoma blew me away last month. Best customer service experience. My first church lady purchase. It is all VERY suspicious. 

Here's the story: About three years ago I bought a slow cooker. I was going to be in charge of a twice a month bible study and it was a group that needed food. You know, good, hearty food -- soups, chilis, split-pea soup with ham hocks. Hence, the slow cooker. Yes, it was expensive. But it was top of the line and was a brand I trusted for all my delicate cooking needs.

I was also operating on the assumption that slow cookers last. I'd heard how people had slow cookers for decades. Or that they'd come upon them suddenly in a closet (unused slow cookers always seem to take folks by surprise) and found they worked like a charm. Well, the one I was buying was a premium brand. So I planned on using it when all I could do was gum my food.

You know what's coming.

Nowhere near the winter of my life -- more at the serious dating stage (I still needed to consult the manual) -- the electronic display on my slow cooker blinked "err" "err" twice. I pressed one of its three buttons. The read out winked out, and turned into a gray, humorless slate. I unplugged it, plugged it back in. I pressed its buttons again and again. But alas. It had been in my presence two years and a couple of months.

Warranty? Two years.  And that's when it felt a little like conspiracy, like the component was on a self-destruct timer. (I'm not saying it was -- just that it felt that way.)

I wrote a review of the product on Williams-Sonoma website. I was nice -- I promise. I simply detailed what had happened, in case someone else bought the product thinking they had a lifetime of smelling stew cooking in the other room while they sat on the porch in a rocker. I figured I learned my lesson about electronics. (Lesson? Electronics means a product doesn't last as long as say, a skillet.) And I resolved to be the kind of church lady that brought pots straight off the stove, sets them down on a hot pad, and lets everything go slowly cold. (It's fine. No one minds.)

I forgot about it.  

Then last month I get contacted by Williams-Sonoma. Seems like when I bought that slow cooker, Williams-Sonoma had a lifetime guarantee on all the products they sold.

Did I know this? the woman on the phone asked.

No, I said.

Not a lot of people did, she said. There's a pause. Where's the slow cooker now? she asks

Salvation Army. I figured somebody could use the ceramic insert, I said. 

Long story short, they gave me a gift card for the entire purchase price of a slow cooker plus $25 for taking the time to talk to the woman on the phone. 

I could not believe it.  

But I recovered quickly enough and got myself my first stand mixer. Baked goods here I come.

Which is a good thing if you're becoming a church lady.  

(By the way, just in case you've figured out the brand of the slow cooker -- the company says they've re-designed it.)