Larry Hnetka Goes HMmmm

Okay, so I had a cranky day today. It was actually three cranky episodes all before noon. Can you say “bad mood” before noon because of these dorks? You bet.

Mr. Cranky One Episode: The Electrician
It started out with the electrician arriving at 8:45 am rather than 10:30 am as scheduled.

It had taken me two days to finally locate an available electrician. I should have heard the bells go off when he said he could “squeeze me in” only at that hallowed 10:30 am time slot on Wednesday.

I had carefully explained the two small electrical jobs we had when I made the appointment. One was to move an electric baseboard heater about a foot so we could push a bookshelf against one wall. The second was to check an electrical outlet in the bathroom that wasn’t working.

Mr. Early-Bird Squeeze-Me-In electrician took a cursory look at the bathroom outlet (with a lighted mirror attached) and refused to do it. He looked at the baseboard heater and said he couldn’t move it. Had no one talked to him about the work order?

He was happily ready to charge me the $70 service fee though. And I noticed when he turned around, he had plumber’s crack to boot!

I asked a few terse but pointed questions. He mumbled something about he didn’t touch “appliances” which apparently was the mirror. Even stupid me knew that likely the mirror was attached to the outlet which didn’t work. He couldn’t do the baseboard heater because the bookshelf was in the way. As soon as he said that, I yanked it away from the wall and said, “there, is that okay now?”

Lo and behold, he replaced the outlet and moved the baseboard heater not a foot but 17 1/2″ to be precise.

What all the initial moaning and groaning was about still mystifies me.

Mr. Cranky Two Episode: Charity Solicitation
At 10:30 am my doorbell ding-donged. There was a gangly young lad with a Children’s Hospital bib on and clipboard in hand. He literally chirped with cheeriness.

He launched into his spiel but he assured me he wasn’t collecting any money. I tried to politely shut him up but after the third chirpy description of the poor sick kids and besides he wasn’t collecting money, I lost it.

I told him to shut up for a moment and told him I wasn’t interested and shut the door loudly. For the next twenty minutes all I could hear in my head was Jiminy Cricket telling me about sick kids.

Mr. Cranky Three Episode: Cold Sales Call
At 11:30 am another ding-dong doorbell ring. This time it was a surly young fellow with some gas company logo jacket on that was making him sweat. He too had a clipboard in hand.

He bluntly asked if I had gas in my house. I wanted to say, sure and let him have a whiff of some personal gas but I didn’t.

Teresan Gas which has had basically a monopoly on gas distribution here is being forced to allow competition to use their pipelines and who knows where the gas from these new companies comes from.

“Get me your gas bill,” the young man said to me.

“I don’t know where my gas bill is,” I replied.

He snorted and said, “C’mon, you’ve got your gas bill in a folder or drawer someplace. Go and get it for me and I’ll show you how you can save money.”

Was I ticked off at that comment? HMmmmm.

So I retorted, “I told you I don’t know where it is. I’m not about to go looking for it. And stop telling me what to do.”

“Your neighbours know where their gas bills are. You’re telling me you don’t want to save money. Go get your gas bill,” he repeated.

“Go get your ass off my doorstep,” I replied. “You are pissing me off. Go away.”

I slammed the door shut for a second time this morning.

Now was I cranky or just annoyed? Who knows.

But don’t be condescending with me, don’t tell me what to do when you arrive unannounced at my door, don’t try to convince me you’re not collecting money while emulating a Disney character.

After lunch, my day went exceedingly well. I accomplished a lot and even had a snooze in the late afternoon. So all in all I guess it wasn’t a cranky day, just a cranky morning.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 8:54:07 PM and is filed under JOURNAL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.