Descent into Alzheimer's Disease

“Brrrr” I thought as I crawled out of bed on New Year’s Day. The house felt a little cold, so I went to check the thermostat. It was set correctly, but was not heating properly. Fortunately, I was able to get someone to come out on a holiday to fix it. Seemed like a simple enough job... the repairman was here a half hour or so, I paid him and he left. All went well until I got home Friday evening around 6 o’clock. The thermometer read 74 degrees even though the thermostat was set at 69. I turned it down to 65, but after 2 hours, it was still 74 in the house. I called the same repairman and he told me to just turn down the thermostat and that there was no way he could come out that night. So I turned the thermostat all the way down, but at 11PM, it was still (yep you guessed it) 74 degrees in the house. The radiators were boiling hot and being fearful of fire I had no choice but to cut off power to the boiler and turn the heat all the way off. After a bit of fitful sleep, I awakened and turned the heat back on at 4:30 AM, setting the thermostat at 65 degrees. Sometime in the morning I fell back to sleep and when I awoke, the house was steamy. Again, I called the same people who had come out before. I explained what was happening and was told he was too busy to come out that day, I would just have to control the heat myself until he could come out. I protested, but he wouldn’t give an inch. He also said that this problem had nothing to do with the work he had done a couple of days prior.

I hung up the phone and tried to access the situation.
1. I had already paid this company to do the job and if I called someone else, I would obviously have to pay them , too.
2. He said it was a different problem than what he had worked on, even though it seemed very similar to me so I felt like he was going to charge me again no matter what was wrong.
3. I didn’t want to go through another sleepless night worrying about the heat.... plus we had a forecast of snow for Sunday.

I decided to call my bank and see if the check I wrote them had cleared yet. It had not, so I canceled payment on it. If the part he replaced was defective, I planned to give it back to him. I called around until I found someone else who would come out.

Guy #1 ended up showing up at my door just as guy #2 was about to finish the job. I asked him to come in, but he declined. I told him I wanted to give him that part back if it was found to be defective and he told me he didn’t want it back because I had already paid for it! The nerve! I told him I had canceled payment on the check and he said to call him and let him know how things turned out. Then he was gone.

The semi-end of the story .... guy #1 replaced the correct part, but he had wired it incorrectly which was causing the problem. I had guy #2 call guy #1 and explain it to him. Then I called guy #1 and told him I would reissue them a check for the original amount minus the amount I paid guy #2 and minus the check cancellation fee. He sounded like he was fine with that, but said the service department would call me Monday. He was very apologetic and said it was his fault.

However, he also said, “I told you I would get over there just as soon as I could.”

I said, “Umm, no you didn’t. You said you weren’t coming.”

After arguing that point back and forth a bit he admitted,
“Well, I don’t really know what I said. I was all backed up and in a horrible mood. I had some cancellations and ended up with some time and that’s why I came over.”

I replied, “All I knew is that you told me you weren’t coming today, so I found someone who would.”

He apologized once more and I said that was fine... no hard feelings. While I am not mad at the guy I am left knowing he lied right to my face about telling me he would be over and I’ll never know if he would have been honest about what was wrong with the boiler or if he would have charged me again. Needless to say that company has lost a customer and the second company has gained one.

It’s snowing big beautiful flakes now and we’re watching from inside our appropriately heated home.

Psalm 51:7 ¶ Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.