My air conditioning has been out for 3 days now and the high is 106 degrees every day. I never realized how lathargic and slow being hot can make someone. I felt like I was in the movie A Time to Kill. Matthew McConaughey is a lawyer in a small Mississippi town where apparently they do not have air conditioning. He spends most of the movie glistening due to the intense southern heat and humidity. Not that I glisten – or play the bongos naked either…
Yesterday the repair man came out late in the afternoon. This little man and what I can only assume was his son introduced themselves and then prepared to make the trek up into my attic to check things out. After about fifteen minutes I heard the fan kick on inside the house and felt cold air coming from the vents.
Now – here’s the important part because what did I obviously do next? I asked the guy what happened. He proceeds to tell me that I have a relay with a “small burn mark on it” and the gist of the “repair” was that he jiggled the wire back and forth until the unit came on. Then he says, “If it ain’t broke then don’t fix it”. At this point you’re thinking to yourself – why didn’t the guy replace the broken or soon-to-be-broken part? Well, he didn’t. And I didn’t make him. My obvious response should have been to tell him to get his ass back up in that attic and fix the A/C for good. But I didn’t. I was busy working and just happy that my house was cooling down. I even walked to the thermostat over the next several hours to smile at the lower temperature displayed each time.
And then it happened. Last night around 9 PM the A/C went out AGAIN. I slept with no covers and 2 fans blowing on high and still sweated all night. I might have even glistened a couple of times.
Moral of the story? Don’t be stupid and let people get away with things you know are going to bite you in the ass. Do it right the first time.
