Thursday, December 02, 2010

Threes?

Do Bad Things Actually Come in Threes?

If so, perhaps I will be free of annoying downturns for a week or so.

This time I think I may have "killed" my lawn tractor.  I was mowing leaves the other day and it conked out. My fear is that I let it run dry of oil and it is now "dead" for good. I called the repair shop to pick it up but "I don't know how long I'll have to wait to see.  I just spend a good chunk of change fixing the mower this summer so if it's done for, that money was wasted.  Either way, I will again have a repair bill.

Then, when I sent a load of dishes through the dishwasher yesterday, it failed to wash them. They were nice and wet, but certainly not what you'd call "clean."  I had to call the repairman for that.  It turned out some of the filter thingies were clogged--something he said I could not fix, so that too cost me a chunk of change.

And then, when I tried to load then Internet on my computer, my cable was down. This meant I had no TV, computer, or telephone. Suffice it to say that despite all their advertising to the contrary, Comcast/Xfinity needs some work on their service call communications system. Using my cell phone, I was off and on the call lines four or five times today trying to get them to understand that it wasn't just my system that was out, but everyone on my road.  I finally escalated my call to a supervisor who filled me in on the real story, which was quite different than what the reps had been telling me during the day.

At any rate, as you can tell, my Internet is working again--it was a general service outage that they fixed by late afternoon. But I have no idea if a technician is going to show up tomorrow anyhow. I tried three times to cancel the scheduled service call and kept getting told by the automated computer response system that I could not.

All this on a rainy day when apparently, there wasn't much to do but deal with repairmen.

As I read through this, I realize that not one of my issues--except perhaps the garden tractor--is actually critical in a real world sense. I mean....a dishwasher, cable TV, and the Internet are not exactly the necessities of life.  They are conveniences--luxuries totally unneeded.  No heat, no food, no shelter, things like that are far more important in the world.

Just goes to show how, in this modern world of convenience, how easy it is to get priorities skewed.  But, that's why I called them "annoying downturns" at the beginning.  And either way, they certainly don't help my bank account.

The Boys? Muddy muckers,I fear. Times like this I know why I keep the sheets on them. It was a pretty warm rainy day, so they might have been fine without "clothes."  But I left them covered.  Good thing..  *LOL*

Hopefully I will be able to ride a little tomorrow. I need to see if Tucker is showing any improvement after his third injection of Pentosan this week.

6 comments:

  1. There is always the sun after the rain ^-^

    Better days are coming.

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  2. Anonymous5:25 AM

    Repair stuff can be irritating and time-consuming.

    Glad the boys stayed (reasonably) clean!

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  3. I enjoy your appreciation at the end of the fact that some of those things are not necessities. Yes, they're convenient and we like them, but it annoys me to no end when people call internet 'necessary' or (heaven forbid) a 'right'.

    Excuse me. We happen to live the the most privileged first world nation in the world. Do not take your (very high) standard of living for granted.

    Sorry for my rant, but thanks for the post. :-)

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  4. You are much wiser than I. I left the blankets off my horses, then had to towel them dry last night before putting their blankets on. What a chore!

    Good luck with the repairs! I finally got sick of Comcast and switched to DirecTV. The internet is a little slower, but the customer service is light years ahead!

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  5. My clothes dryer is sounding strange, although it is still functioning. These things always cost money at the worst times and dealing with automated phone systems just sends me over the edge.

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  6. i always reckon the main point of rugs is to keep the horse clean!

    hope that is the end of your repair bills for a while .

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