I have not posted for a month because my computer has been on the fritz. My son came home to visit and fixed it for me. It has been working fine for two days, so I decided to post today. In the middle of posting the mouse froze up. I had to shut the computer off, which is the first time it has been shut off in two days. It of course came back with the same frozen screen it had for the last month. I love this computer because my son built it. On the other hand I have to realize he built it a decade ago. Since I work at what I refer to as a “minimal wage job” I’m not sure when I’ll have the cash for a new home computer. I will be using Mrs. E’s laptop, even though I hate laptops as I am even slower on them than my home desktop computer (if that’s possible).
A dead computer is only one of the many machines that make up my household graveyard of dead and dying equipment. I am home today waiting on an employee of the roofing company that installed my shingles in 2009. He is coming to check out why the ice melting on my roof is dripping into two of my windows. I looked over the contract and did not see noted anywhere that the job included an indoor waterfall. I try to eat a yogurt everyday but do not want mold in the walls of my domicile.
While waiting for the roofer to come today, I decided to run the sweeper in the family room. My sweeper is one of the few machines in the house that works. Of course, it does not work well. You can only sweep one room at a time because it dies after ten minutes and won’t start again for several hours. Sweeping the whole house takes a week, so it’s lucky we have a small home. Mrs. E asked me today, “What do you think is wrong with this Eureka Boss vacuum?” I thought for a moment and replied, “Eureka, I’ve figured it out. We should have bought the Eureka Worker model instead of the Eureka Boss model.” This Boss needs to be quickly put into the garbage because like most of the bosses I’ve had in my life it’s worthless.
Mrs. E and a friend have been doing holiday baking. It’s been difficult because our gas stove decided that sometimes it’s going to shut itself off. I am starting to smell a gas leak but that could also be coming from our gas boiler furnace. The furnace’s motor was screeching last week and we weren’t getting much heat. I called a furnace repair shop and they came a few hours later. It was after normal working hours and I had to pay time and a half. Of course, by the time the repair man arrived I had heat and the furnace was quiet. I shelled out more for the one hour call than I gross in a day. I still have heat but the furnace has been screeching since the repair man backed out the drive.
We ended up at the laundromat a few days ago because our washer is not spinning. Last month when a repair man put a belt on it he said, “It’s getting rusted out and won’t be worth fixing much longer.” The gas dryer has been making some funny noises also. I think the dryer is having sympathy pains for his mate the washer. Even if we get a new washer things will not be normal. That is because the floor drain is partially plugged and drains very slowly. It cannot handle the fast exiting water from the washer’s exit hose. When Mrs. E or I hear the spin cycle coming we make a mad dash to the washer. It’s the only exercise program I’ve been able stay on. Once we get to the washer we have to keep opening and closing the washer’s lid to slow down the water leaving the washer. If we don’t do this the water floods out the drain pipe and all over the floor. We had a plumber try to snake out the floor drain pipe to no avail. He said, we need a new drain elbow but refused to do the work. That is because the elbow is located in a crawl space under the house. The man we bought the house from had installed only a small partial basement with the other two-thirds of the foundation being a crawl space. His trying to save a few bucks by not have a full basement seems like a pretty stupid idea now.
We’ve had two other plumbers come to look at fixing the elbow. After the first guy saw he would have to get in the crawl space, he said he’d be back tomorrow and tomorrow never came. The next guy took a look in the crawl space and said, “I’ve got to get something out of my van.” He got in the van and left rubber getting out of my drive. I imagine all three of the above mentioned plumbers deleted my address from their GPS systems before they left my driveway. I think they also gave other brother plumbers my phone number so they could all avoid it on caller ID.
I can never afford to start to fix and replace all the things my house needs. What am I trying to tell you? That, if you are someone who is reading this and thinks they are on my Christmas list and getting a present……think again.
I am the old man living in a worn out shoe. But, as long as I have a tongue and a sole (soul) I’m going to, “Just do it.”
P.S. The roofers just left but not before telling me that my ice build up problem is because I need new gutters.
John Hiatt ~Slow Turning
Thunderbird
“It is only when they go wrong that machines remind you how powerful the are.” ~ Clive James
Elecpencil 