The first wrench that was thrown into his plans happened the night before we were to leave. The central air conditioning pooped out. After I got home from buying last minute important things like clean white socks for my husband I noticed the house was hot even though air was blowing from the ceiling vents. I then realized the outside blower was not on. Oh shit, this couldn't be good. I immediately went into panic mode. It was already in the 90's and scheduled to be that hot all week. I couldn't have the boy and dog without air. Naturally it was after ten so there weren't any service people answering our calls. Luckily my husband had someone he knew, the Duke, who had fixed it last year so he told me not to worry he would call him early in the morning. I worried all night, and sweated profusely as well.
First thing in the morning my husband called the Duke only to have his call go directly to voice mail. Since my husband is a mechanic he thought it sounded like the motor burnt out and set out to try and replace it himself. He knows nothing about air conditioning units but I still put my trust in him. He knew I would not leave without having this problem resolved so I'm sure he saw no other alternative. I kept bitching about the timing of the problem until I realized it happened at a good time. What if we had left the day before as originally planned, until I put the kibosh on that because the boy was graduating on Saturday and I wanted to spend Sunday with him. What if it happened when we weren't home? The boy wouldn't have even realized the outside unit wasn't functioning and maybe a fire could have occurred. The outside unit was red hot when my husband checked on it. So after I thought about it, although inconvenient, I realized it was a blessing it happened when it did.
As the clock ticked away with no callback, I GTS'ed (googled that shit as my kids would say) so my husband found a place to get a motor and brought the other one with him. Google Maps was inaccurate, surprise surprise, so it took him another half hour to find out exactly where it was located. Luckily they had the motor in stock. Unluckily, the screws were too long so my husband had to saw them down to make it fit. Putting it all back together was more difficult for him than the intricate engines he normally does because he had no freaking idea what the hell he was doing. Amazingly he got it all together with the help of saws, steel wool, determination and my prayers. He fired it up and it promptly kicked off the circuit breaker. Failure. Oh shit, now what?
Just then his phone rang and it was the Duke! He was apprised of the situation, but since he had a regular day job and lived in Windy Gap now and didn't have any of his tools with him he couldn't come over that day but promised he would coordinate with the boy to come over and fix it. Luckily the boy didn't have to go until 5 the next day and the Duke got off at 3 so there was a small window of opportunity. He assured us it wasn't going to be a problem as did the boy. "Just go, don't worry, I can handle this." I felt terrible, not only because it was so freaking hot but now the boy had yet another responsibility to add to his already long list. "It's not too late you can still come with us," I begged him. "No, I have to go to work and would rather stay in the sweltering house than lie on a hot beach anyway." "Give the boy a break. He can handle this," my husband said.
This was not the way I had pictured the start of a much needed relaxing vacation. With her surgery looming ever closer the girl needed to get away. I could not disappoint her. I prayed for help and put my faith there would be a silver lining, so with much trepidation and anxiety, we headed south.
No comments:
Post a Comment