Blast it All

True to the form, something must always go wrong in the house while the husband is away. This time it is a garage door.

Home from a day of errands and satisfied with deals from the thrift shop my daughter and I prepare to relax. And the garage door will not close. A quick call to maintenance and this older seemly nice enough gentleman arrives. I try really hard to like him, but I can't help but get the vibe he thinks this is beneath him. Then he finds something that could have been blocking the sensor, hits a reset button on the main box and it closes.

End of story.

Until an hour or so later I hear the garage door go up. I look and lo and behold it has gone up. Push the button and go on my way. Just a little later it begins to get drafty in the back area close to the door that leads out into the garage. Yes, the door was up. Now I am beginning to think I am losing my mind, so I decide to randomly check on it. And yes two more times it goes up on it's own. I place a call to maintenance, this time for emergency services because it is 4:30pm. and they are done for the day. Within a few hours I notice the door is up and just about that time the next guy arrives. He asks me if I knew it was up since he saw it like that when he parked.

This guy goes out there pulls it up and down, and turns off the breaker switch. He finally gets it to where I can open it manually and goes away. I am thinking this is great. The only downside is it being a little awkward to pull it back down because I am short. They put in a work order promising someone would come on Friday.

Friday arrives and my driveway is completely blocked at the end by a night's worth of snow plows. The guy arrives earlier than I expected and I think he was trying to be chipper, but at that moment it came across wrong.

So I am trying to shovel and he wants to make small talk. I am just barely holding my temper in. This is before coffee and not more than thirty minutes after I rolled out of bed.

I have to brush snow off of the van in order to grab the controller for the garage door.

And naturally he can find nothing wrong with the door. He tells me to call should it act up. By the time he makes his way through my tiny opening at the end of the driveway I am nearly ready to smack him with my shovel.

Not even thirty minutes later he is back. This time he wants to completely reset the box. So again I have to stop shoveling hand him both remotes and listen to him prattle on an on about taking my time with the shoveling and how this is life. Really?

Finally he leaves.

No more than an hour after he leaves the dang door is opened again. I close it. It opens. I call dispatch who wants me to pull the red cord, disable the door and wait until Wednesday.

I let loose part of the annoyance I had been holding in all day.

The guy came back sat in his van for thirty minutes then comes to the door and proceeds to tell me he can't fix it because it doesn't appear to be broke. Then tries to joke with me about it being possessed or me feeling like I am going crazy. He also tells me he understands that it costs money to heat a house that is drafty from a wonky garage door. I am done with him. I am praying this door works and that I can forget about him and the door and the snow on the other side of the door.

I know I am not crazy.

January 6 2017