Okay, I’m giving you two in one day because I know some of you probably barfed at that last post. Shame on you, but Sunday is supposed to be a happy day, so let’s see if I can amuse you with this story.
My parents came to visit me yesterday. Visit isn’t the correct word though. They came to do “projects” in my new apartment. Mom, who had decided she was going to decorate my entire guest bathroom, had a ton of products she needed to get in there, and Dad wanted to install a number of shelves that both he and Mom felt were necessary for me to have in my laundry room and coat closet. Additionally, Dad wanted to move my thermostat. The thermostat is in the middle of a wall where I want to put my book case.
When they got here, Dad turned on golf, or rather he grabbed my three remote controls and stabbed at the buttons until I went over and helped him get the TV and golf on, and then he turned to the thermostat. He got it opened up and pulled on it till the main cable came out. The main cable houses five little wires, and these five little wires plug into the thermostat. Dad’s idea was to buy another 3 or so feet of cable, unwire the 5 little wires from the thermostat, splice them into the 3 footer, and then wire the 3 footer into the thermostat. Splicing is where you take two wires and twists the ends together to make one long wire. So essentially he just wanted to extend the amount of cable he had to work with so that it would be easier to move the thermostat to the side of the wall. Then I’d be able to put my book case against the wall.
But he ran into a problem. The five little wires were really plugged in hard into the thermostat. So hard he couldn’t get them out. So he resorted to cutting the cable. Now the idea was to place his 3 footer between his cut. So he had to do two splice jobs. Stay with me, I know this can be hard to picture from just my text. But basically he did that, and now he’s got one really long cable.
Uh-oh
What’s happened.
The thermostat isn’t turning back on.
Let me look at it.
And I looked at it. Dad seemed to have done a good job. I couldn’t detect anything wrong with his work. But the thermostat wouldn’t come back on. Then Dad thought about what he had done. He hadn’t bothered to turn off the power to the thermostat because he thought it didn’t draw enough voltage to hurt him. I don’t know if that’s a good idea. Just because something doesn’t have a lot of voltage it could draw a lot of current, and I think it’s current that gets you more than voltage. But either way, he hadn’t turned off the power and he thinks that when he cut the cable he blew a fuse in the air-conditioning unit which is in the furnace room.
For those of you who rent apartments, in my experience I almost never have access to the furnace room. So now we had to call the apartment and see if they could get us into my furnace room. I went down to the office and asked if a maintenance worker could come up and get me in the furnace closet. The man said none were available but that he could try if he had the key. That was not what I wanted. The last thing I wanted was for the managers to find out about what had happened. But I was stuck so I said okay. My idea was that maybe Dad could stand in front of the thermostat, which was now hanging on the ground due to his 3 foot extension, and the manager wouldn’t see it.
The manager walked over and I had driven and I made it back before he did, and ran in to tell Dad my plan. Dad said I should just tell him what I did. I said no way, and mocked him as a business man. I said you never ever show your full hand in cards. Let the manager come up with a key to the furnace room and just say we think a fuse is blown. There is absolutely no reason at this point to tell him what we did. So he comes up, and at the door he says he realized he doesn’t have the proper key, and the maintenance worker is out of town, so it won’t be until Monday that someone can help me get into the furnace room.
(Me) Oh that’s okay. I’ll just open a window, thanks for coming by and enjoy the rest of your weekend.
(Him) No problem. Have a great day.
(Dad) Why don’t you come in here and see what we did?
Great, thank you Dad. I had no choice but to let him in. He walked over to Dad and Dad explained the situation. He seemed fine about it, he didn’t make any faces or show anger in his voice. In fact he wanted to talk more about the golf we had on rather than the fact that my thermostat in my less than a month old brand new construction apartment was hanging on the floor from a double splice job, done by a tenant, and has apparently broken the air-conditioning unit.
On Monday, I am scheduled to meet with someone who will have the key to the furnace room. On Monday I will be wearing a tie all day, in the hopes that by looking a little distinguished, perhaps I won’t get thrown out of my apartment. Either way, Monday will be a very interesting day.
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