High tech - more trouble than it's worth

So, I have this really expensive embroidery/sewing machine. Two names, initials H and V. I never use it for embroidery - it's a lot of trouble to set up and I'm not very inspired by the results.

Anyway, it has a lot of handy utility stitches and every once in a while, I pull it out to sew something. Like a hem in a knit fabric. Or overcast a seam. This happens maybe once a year.

And every *&^ time, it sews about 15 feet, snarls the thread, flips some kind of bar in the bobbin assembly and absolutely will not work after that. It doesn't look like it would be very hard to fix myself if I only knew how, but apparently it is something only the HV mechanic can do. Of course, it only happens on Saturday (because that's when I'm home to do this stuff of course) and the dealer is closed on Sunday. Note to file, any project will take a minimum of 9 days.

I think I am just going to go get some simple machine that has half decent utility stitches and tell the dealer they can have this piece of high tech poo. If they can get it running.

Why can't the government do a cash for clunkers program that lets people s-can their junk for some functioning tools? Somehow, I think that would be more stimulative. I am definitely shovel ready with this.