and it ain't getting better...

I spent a fair amount of time on the phone with the air conditioning people yesterday. Our air conditioner is dead and needs a new motor. They can't get a new motor from Carrier until the 20th. They think they found another motor that could possibly work for us. They're going to test it at their shop today and if so, bring it out. They said, "In the meantime, crank the downstairs air so it can cool the upstairs." We tried that already. Our house is proving the physics that says heat rises. You can freeze the first floor, walk up the stairs and feel where the cool air stops and the sweltering starts. It doesn't do squat for the second floor.

The refrigerator guy came and witnessed the refrigeratior in 'possessed' mode. All the lights were flashing and the little flap the opens to let the ice out was going crazy, making that nerve crunching popping noise. The only thing it could have done better is levitate off the floor, spin in circles and projectile vomit pea soup...and the guy is amazed.

"I never saw this before...yesterday. I went to this lady's house. Same refrigerator, same color, bought about a year ago. They said they can't get her parts for two weeks, so she raised holy hell and they're overnighting them to me."

OK, sounds like we need to do the same thing...except...after talking to Maytag people on some tech line, he determines the parts he ordered won't fix the problem...so the other lady is probably SOL. He finds we need the bigger part that all her parts are inside. He can't get it either, so the wife calls Maytag and does the "holy hell" thing, only to be told...we don't have the part either. We can't overnight it to you.

So now I'm thinking about that series of commercials...the one with the lonely Maytag repair guy who is never busy because, supposedly, Maytag appliances don't break. I'm getting a whole new perspective on that guy. He's not sitting on his ass because Maytag appliances don't break. He's sitting on his ass because once they do, he can't get parts to fix the damn things!

So yeah, in the meantime we're sweating a bit....and so's our food. The wife cried herself to sleep last night. Thank you so much Maytag...and Carrier.

I know, I know. It could be a whole lot worse. We have a house, even if it's a bit warm, and we have each other, and we have cable TV. We're doing a whole lot better than people in the Solomons, but we didn't survive a tsunami.

On the bright side...the floors are done and look pretty good. I took the youngster to his interview with the principal of his future high school yesterday. Apparently it went well, because the principal told him it would be his future high school. Now we just have to get him (or rather, he has to get himself) through 8th grade.