Tuesday, December 07, 2010

This Time Six Years Ago.........

It's December, and we all know what that means. Rather than write about shopping, wrapping, mailing, decorating, and baking (which is all I can think about this month), I'm sharing something I ran across this morning. I wrote it at the end of my 2004 Christmas letter:

As I write this, two guys from my gas company are attempting to convert the new range from natural gas to LP. They’ve been attempting this for about two hours now. When they arrived they took one look at the stove and said they didn't have the right tool. It sounded like they needed some special screwdriver bit, so I got out the set I'd bought myself a couple of months ago and asked if one of those would do. One would.

But there were other obstacles, and the guy in charge opened the owner's manual to do his research…until I discovered that he was reading the one for the microwave. Now I'm sitting here writing to you, and they're hunched over the stove, saying things like, "If you lose that, we're dead." and "Now which one goes in here?" and "Oh, boy, do I hate engineering!" and "Which one is the big one?" and “We lost 30 minutes because you didn’t listen to me when I said I was right!” and “How’re we gonna figure this out?” and the worst: "I'm gonna stick a piece of paper in here" "I dunno...I don't like the idea of paper in the gas burner." It’s a remarkably good rendition of the Three Stooges, minus one.

A sense of humor is a great blessing.

10 comments:

Dona said...

Oh dear! That must have been funny (and a little scary) to hear.

Bridgett said...

Oh, thanks for the laugh!

Indigo Bunting said...

Wonderful! and you're still with us!

crystal said...

hee hee :)

Eulalia Benejam Cobb said...

I have to leave the room when there are workmen about....

Susan said...

Thanks, everyone! Good idea, Lali. I always find myself hovering to make sure they don't let the cats out.

Anonymous said...

Nice post, kind of drawn out though. Really good subject matter though.

Susan said...

I'm guessing Anonymous works for a gas company.....

Helen said...

Good one Susan! (The post and your last comment.)

Anonymous said...

Wow, that's crazy man. They should really try to do something to fix that.