Some thoughts while I wait for the air conditioner to be repaired.
Having one’s A/C go on the fritz in the middle of a string of 90 degree days is such a cliché, but here I am, right in the middle of one. What next? Will the furnace will wait until the sub-zero temperatures of January to stop working?
I am reminded of another cliche (or maybe it is more a superstition): “Things happen in threes.” Becky conjured up this old wives’ tale after our dehumidifier stopped working, our water heater needed to be replaced and now our air conditioner needs to be set right again.
Psychologists have investigated this common belief and call it the “clustering illusion.” They say humans tend to look for and see patterns in random events even when there are none. That sounds scientific.
I am sure if I look hard enough, I can find three really good things that occurred because of these inconvenient home repairs. For example, it is good that our water heater broke when it did. We happened to be home and noticed the wet carpet near the door of the small basement room where it is located. What if we had been on vacation? What would our house look like, smell like, after a week of 50 gallons of water on the carpet? What a major undertaking that would have been to clean up. I suppose you could say the timing was lucky.
And wasn’t it a good thing that I had the opportunity to bring out the boxes and plastic tubs from the little water heater room? Periodically, I am confronted with the reality that I clearly have too much stuff and I should do something about it.
Here is a plastic tub filled with accoutrements related to musical instruments. Why do I feel the need to keep old guitar cables that don’t work? It is clear that I am never going to repair them; they have been coiled for years in a box in a little-used area of the basement, after all. To be even more honest with myself, they never worked right even when I did try to solder them back to usability in the days when I was a scrimping-to-get by musician. Why would I expect to suddenly be more skilled at it now? Yes, it was something of a blessing that the room flooded.
It turns out, the service technician who replaced the water heater is a former student. It is almost always a happy thing to run into my seventh-grade students out in the world all grown up. He remembered not being an exemplary student — he remembered correctly — but he has found his calling doing a good and useful trade. During my time as a school teacher, I tried to keep in mind how as a teenager I myself was quite the opposite of an exemplary student. I figured if I could change, any kid could.
As we talked I learned that both my former student and the pleasant young man who just finished putting our A/C in working condition are taking classes to help advance their chosen occupations. Some still hold that furthering your education means college, but others know college is not for everyone. Having a successful career and a satisfying life means finding something you want to do, and doing it the best you can.
Let’s see: The timing of these home maintenance challenges; the opportunity to discard stuff and simplify my life; the chance to chat with a former student and hard-working young person, both of whom give me hope for the future — it looks like good things really do come in threes.
