Sixty Three: On Home Ownership

Can you guess what Jeff is doing in this picture?

He is blow drying the frozen coils in our freezer after the refrigerator stopped working LESS THAN TWENTY FOUR HOURS AFTER OUR A/C WENT OUT.

And those coolers in the middle of the kitchen? They are storing my precious Jimmy Dean sausage biscuits and other important staples from our freezer and refrigerator.

As the saying goes, when it rains it pours. It's definitely pouring in the Lyle household.  I don't know, maybe it is payback for all those times I littered and threw my gum out the window. Or those times when I conveniently tore the (expired) expiration date off my coupons. Or that time last week when I took an extra fork from the cafeteria at work (people get fired for that you know, just ask the lunch ladies).

Actually the refrigerator turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  I took this picture when the repairman was out getting parts and Jeff was just assisting him to speed up the process.

After the repairman looked our refrigerator over, he listed out three possible causes for the non-cooling refrigerator. I listened intently to what he had to say (as if I cared about anything other than the price). And once he was finished talking, I began venting to him about our home ownership woes.

Whining really. Our a/c went out yesterday. And now this. Blah. Blah. Blah.

At first it seemed like he was just a very good listener because he was asking me lots of questions about what broke on the A/C. But soon it came out that he has experience working with A/C's but prefers to work solely on appliances to avoid climbing around in hot attics and to avoid the temptation of unethical up-selling.

Long story short: He offered to take a look at the A/C without charging us sixty five dollars to do so. He informed us that the $500 repair quote from yesterday was a bunch of bologna since the part we needed was $75 and the installation would only take about 30 minutes (after he fixed the refrigerator). That should buy us a few months until we have to replace the whole unit, and maybe by that time we'll have more negotiating power in the winter months when I would assume the A/C business isn't booming.

All that to say that tonight I wrote this blog in a much better mood.

Sitting in 73 degree comfort as the refrigerator cools my milk.

And now I think I will go research home warranties.