Dealing with the Honest Guys Appliance Repair, Inc

The morning started off with an early morning call from the Honest Guys Appliance Repair, Inc., who had overcome the seemingly insurmountable handicap of having called themselves the Honest Guys Appliance Repair, Inc., to earn my business, and be selected for the Extremely Important Job of repairing my dishwasher. Sometimes, it’s worth a quick check in a local Facebook group. When I called yesterday, they had given us a 2-hour window (9-11am) and, quite amazingly, arrived at 9am. Normally, a two-hour window means any two hours after the initial window has closed. There was a quick assessment – they didn’t think they had the heating element for this model in stock and might need to order part, so gave us a quote and a timeline, and then left. Thirty minutes later, they had called back, having located the part and not had to order it in, and wondered if he could come back immediately to install it – rather than waiting till Thursday, as planned. Turned up 20 minutes later, installed the part, checked it worked, cleaned up any mess, sent the invoice electronically, and left.
 
If you are sitting there and saying to yourself, “yeah, so what?”, then you are a lucky person and you have never had to deal with tradesmen in North America – or at least in Ottawa. If, as in Ottawa, the tradesman is king – and possibly rightly so – then the small appliance repair man is High King (or Queen), for whom Cair Paravel is a seat almost undeserving of the royal backside. They are gods; next to small appliance repair men, hockey players are small-time Charlies with no ambition, drive or foibles. Finding one of these people – or, more rarely, a company of these people – is like hunting the snark: they might exist, but it is improbable. When you luck out and find one, you take his card, put it inside your passport, and take it to the bank to be placed in a safety deposit box. What you must NEVER do is share the information. If you share the information, other people will use it; then, when you need a small appliance repair man and call the person you recently used, he’ll be busy. You won’t be able to use him. You have to start the search all over again. But, as you all seem like reasonable people, so I’ll share the info with you. Especially as you don’t live in Ottawa!
 
The morning was the undoubted high spot of the day. I’m still feeling contract remorse from having told my NZ job to go whistle. I’ve been sitting, staring at the computer screen, trying to write – and it is not going brilliantly. That is unsurprising. We are all sick and Mrs. Ottawacker is cracking the whip. (Normally, I quite like that, but this time it is for work.) Among today’s tasks was taking Ottawacker Jr. to his 2pm doctor’s appointment. It is my own fault – I booked the appointment for him. His cough is not improving and he still has residual photosensitivity. “But, Liverpool are playing this afternoon,” I said. “Against Paris Saint-Germain. In the Champions League.” My triptych of clauses had no effect. I was out of the door with Ottawacker Jr. before the echo of the word “League” had finished ringing through the foyer.
 
We were at the doctors’ for two hours and it was, predictably, a nightmare. Tuesday seems to be “drop in to the waiting room and share your germs” day; by the time we were moved out of the waiting room into the actual doctor’s room, both of us had acquitted the grim look of those who have been injected with a mixture of Botox and dandelion and burdock. It was the same look we had at the Children’s Hospital last Sunday. After two hours, the doctor arrived and sat and asked questions and listened and prodded and poked and tutted. Then, she said he had nothing of real concern, try a nasal spray to alleviate the post-nasal drip, and never darken her doorstep again. Having missed the first half of the Liverpool game for an evaluation I could have given (had I had the requisite decade of training and experience), I nodded silently, and left.
 
When I got outside, it was raining. And, according to the thermometer in the car, 9ºC. I am not sure how either of these things happened.
 
By the time we had returned to the leafy streets of Heron Park, I was in somewhat of a state – not helped by Ottawacker Jr.’s inability to find the score on the phone. I ran up the stairs, found the appropriate channel on my laptop, and found to my surprise that they had only been playing for 10 minutes. Of course, when we changed the clocks on Sunday, the UK didn’t – so we are now 6 hours behind. Smiling happily that I wasn’t going to miss the game after all (this is why ignorance is bliss), I then had to sit through two hours of nail-biting, angina-inducing football, only to eventually watch Liverpool lose on penalties. Oh well.
It’s.
Only.
A.
Game.
 
Then I cooked dinner. Which Ottawacker Jr. didn’t like. And Mrs. Ottawacker didn’t eat, because “I can’t eat at 7pm in the middle of the week.”
 
Oh. And, you know, Trump.