They are the new doctors. Held in the greatest of reverence. We need them more than any MD.
Plumbers, electricians, a/c mechanics. These are our crisis people. We look up to them.We have their telephone numbers specially marked on our phones. When they are nice to us we are overwhelmed.
Yesterday our a/cs stopped working. One began to leak and the other sent out puffs of warm and fetid air. the third bwegan to flip off every five minutes and take half the lights in the house with it. Our a/cs have a deal with each other. They won't go off together, they do it in turn, like a relay race. Today, you, tomorrow, him, day after the one in the drawing room,and if there is a guest coming then the machine in the guest room should kill its compressor as the guest arrives.
And so now you have to fawn and snivel and grovel to the mechanic over the phone who laughs scornfully and says, today holiday, I am in Sharjah. For some reason, when you call them they are invariably three hundred miles away, never round the corner.
And they are never free. You know like the doctor gives you an 11 a.m. appointment and you arrive at 10:45 a.m. and he comes at 12.05 and then calls you in at 1.10 p.m. the same with the plumber. I will be there in one hour.
Yeah, throw hat in the air. it is now three hours but no sign.
Now, you are begging and whimpering and he says, okay I'll send someone if I cannot come but no promises. That is after you have sweetly asked him if he will be coming seeing it is now over three hours, no, of ocurse you understand how busy he is. You gibber gratitude. He's sending someone, you announce.
Finally, someone comes and he is grumpy and sullen and rude and you make stupid suck up remarks like where are you from and he doesn't answer or look up so you give him a cold drink and some cake and some samosas, give him biryani if you have it and he scoffs it (not eat, disdain) and then it is always bad news. It is never a mini minor eeny meeny error. This is where they pull the sheet over the air conditioner. Compressor gone. Connector burnt out. Magnetometer short circuit.
Gas leaked. That is like pneumonia, good news that the a/c will not die but it will take time to refill.
By now your guest is wondering if he should just shift to a hotel. And you are wondering, maybe we should all go with him.
If it's not the a/c it is the fridge insulation or the car battery, a kettle that trips the whole house, an iron that leaks water and sticks to the most expensive dress your wife has or...you get the drift.
In our house the cut out does just that...it cuts out.
