I'd Have Thought I Was Being Scammed for Being a Woman

Hick is starting to view the world in the eyes of the newly retired. Even though he's been retired for over a year. He made a lot of contacts in the working world. Was always getting free tickets to Cardinals or Blues games, and once for the St. Louis Rams. His boss put the kibosh on that, though. The boss thought it was not fair, and that such swag should be shared by all employees in the plant. So when such items arrived, addressed to Hick, they were taken, and a random drawing was held.

Hick was not really bitter about the new procedure. He's not one to dwell on such things. He did say that the company reps were not happy about it. "They say, 'We're sending them to YOU, not to some random hourly worker.' I'm the one who deals with them on a regular basis." Sure, there's the concept of kick-backs, and one hand washes the other. But Hick is not the type to be influenced by free gifts. He did business with the entities best suited for the company's needs. He also started getting things mailed to his home address, and not by his own request. I think my favorite was the two loaves of bread, blueberry and pumpkin, that we got every Christmas season.

Anyhoo... back when he was working, and we had a problem with our air conditioner/ furnace, the company we bought it from couldn't get here quick enough. A couple times, they didn't even charge us. That's what being a manager of facility maintenance can do for you. Yes, Hick did his work business with the same company. But nobody forced him to buy our air conditioner/furnace from that company when we built our house.

Thursday, our air conditioner wasn't rising to the occasion. As temperatures rose outside, so did they inside. It started when the electricity went off for 90 minutes. After that, our air conditioner couldn't seem to cool. Set at 74, it let the inside temp rise to 76. Once the sun went down, it cooled to 74 after a couple of hours. Hick went to look at the outside unit, and pronounced the coil to be "not-cold."

Let the record show that I've complained about this air conditioning/heating unit for years. It seems like we're always having a problem, and calling a service man. The one who showed up this time, I think known to Hick, said they haven't made a service call here in three years. That's a miracle, if accurate. That would mean we haven't had a problem since The Pony went off to college. That's how I measure time these days. Pony, and post-Pony.

I remember when we had a problem with the thermostat, and got a replacement. Also a time that the service man said there was a leak in the thing that holds the freon. A slow leak, he said. I'm not sure why it wasn't fixed, or a part replaced. Perhaps the cost would have been more than recharging with freon.

Let the record show that Hick was here for the service call (he missed his regular Friday afternoon bull session with his buddies), and that he accompanied the service man to the unit, and also brought him into the basement to check out the part that's inside. The diagnosis was low freon. Or perhaps NO freon.

It cost $481. That's $81 for the diagnostic service, and $400 for freon.

I guess that's only $133.33 per year. Not counting the service call.

Hick says we're lucky that they worked us in the next day. He'd only sent a text to his contact there on Thursday night, after hours. Good thing he cultivated those work relationships with people like himself.