If It Breaks... You're Broke

Well, here we are in some kind of a pickle. You're probably not interested in what variety... but I am. Don't you just love the way I include you in all my troubles? I hope so because you need to feel my pain... whether it's from laughing or crying.

A few weeks back I had my computer fixed. Why? It periodically cut off all its friends. No mouse. No screen. No printer. No anything. Finally, no reason. No cause and no lurking villain could be found. I can say this because I paid real American dollars to get it fixed. The lurking demon avoided fixing, so the computer did it again.

When it happens, I turn off the computer and turn it back on. This means I will lose anything I was working on which hadn't automatically copied itself. This also means that I keep losing portions of these documents because they are the longest things I write and most vulnerable. Not to worry. I have lots of words but it does get confusing when I write them down, lose them, and try to bring them back to this place.

Gosh, I've made myself tired thinking of all this stuff. My real issue is this... does anybody fix anything anymore? I don't think so. My track record proves that fixing things is throwing $$ out the window but when something around here breaks, what do you think I do? I call for repairs. Can I afford them? No. Do things stay repaired? NOPE.

Tillamook is a small town. There's not a lot of competition here so fixes come at a premium. I have paid my month's budget for household items to have a repairman reset my electrical panel. How about that guy who charged me more than $100 to tell me that my refrigerator was just fine but we weren't shutting it properly? That was the fix. Really. The problem did not go away. I gave up. You only get me once on that deal. This must be the land o' plenty for repair people because there are a lot of geezers and we seem to get a lot of broken stuff.

Back to the computer. I love it and it loves me but there is some cockeyed problem in the mother board which has overtaken both of us. How can I fight this? Being a non-violent type, I'd like to just sit down with a glass of chardonnay and the motherboard. We'd chat about how she'd mucked up my life lately and we'd laugh and she'd fix herself... or send me her twin sister and we'd be done with it. Will this happen? Nope.

If this was my very own mother things would be different. Like me, she hates things that go wrong but REALLY dislikes the part where you have to call someone to fix those wrong things. Of course, I get to help with that part. We spent weeks repeatedly buying new computers for her before we found one that worked. Truly I thought both of us would just jump off a curb in Corvallis and give up. Double curbicide... we were so close.

My grandfather Wayne could fix anything, because he thought he could. He was the only living human I ever knew who would test a circuit with his thumb to see if it was 220. He fixed things like toasters and electric stove burners and cars. His work showed all over their house in Milwaukie. The ceiling lights came on and off a lot... as did other electrical devices. The stove, toaster and car were never right. He just kept fixing them. Grandfather never gave up fixing things. Maybe I learned patience from him.

Yesterday I tried for the sixth time to get a billing problem fixed with an appropriate refund to my credit card. It took 30 minutes of listening to music before I struck pay dirt with a live representative and another 40 minutes to solve the issues at hand. So I guess you can fix things if you never give up trying. I've learned to put the phone on speaker and keep doing what I'm doing while I wait for the sound of a voice from India. They are also patient because they have to repeat a lot of things. I am glad for this.

Here's the ironic part (there's always one of those) the person who fixes my computer is awesome. In fact of all the fixer people in Tillamook County in every category, she and our mechanic are the best in the world... at least in mine. Yes, I bought a new computer. The old mother board and I are parting ways. One fix is all you get from me these days... then you're gone. Where's Grandpa Wayne when you need him?