Just Lucky, I Guess - Sue

Oh my God. My expensive Asus computer acted like a plastic souvenier trinket from Taiwan and blue-screened. Clutching my chest with the first signs of internet withdrawal, I fired up the air compressor and vacuumed the old Takes a Beating and Keeps on Ticking Gateway. I'll have to call PC911 and report the hard drive or processor failure or whatever the FUCK it decided to fail with this time. After replacing the power supply, and now having to replace everything else, it'll be a brand new desktop that I should actually be able to USE. Of course, it won't be an Asus anymore, but that will be what Martha calls a "good thing."

I have officially made one corner of the living room presentable for the new furnace installers today. They're going to walk away and say, "Hey Luis, did you get a load of that one corner of the living room? That corner of the ceiling is so clean, you could manufacture microprocessors on it."

If I don't lose 50 pounds before this house is clean, I'm going to donate myself to science to study as a genetic anomaly. Yesterday, we went to HD and bought a 24 pack of microfibre cleaning cloths. They are super absorbent and can be used either wet or dry. We hopped over to OD and got foam board and double sticky tape to afix to the wall for photos. Got home, steam cleaned the couch. I would say 95% of Lisle came off. We put the boards up. Then Dan, the furnace man, came over to light the pilot, which had mysteriously self-extinguished last spring two days before the warm came. We were lucky!

"No good," says Dan. "See all that stuff in there? Your heat exchanger is shot."

Phyllis and I looked. Yep, it was shot alright. Dan wasn't saying it was going to kill us, or the dogs, or the cats, or the birds. He wasn't saying it was the end of the world. Phyllis and I exhaled. Whew! "I'm just saying you need a new furnace."

I wanted to ask, "How much cream is that going to scrape off the top of our pail of milk?" But he wasn't done.

"I'm not saying I'm the cheapest in town," he said. "But I will say I'm the best!" And there we were, like two Powerball winners, lucky again! The best furnace man in all of metro Denver and the entire front range had fallen on our doorstep in our time of need. Dan added, "I don't know how to break this to you, but your air convection is not up to code."

I told him that he was the expert and we would seriously consider whatever he recommended. Still feeling lucky, I boldly asked him how much a new furnace job might run. He went out to his van to crunch some numbers. Phyllis and I quickly agreed that no matter how much it was, we would pay it. We would pay it because we are two desperate  people who were once riding high, but were now out of choices and down on our luck.

And I still have to call PC911.