We've lived in this house for some 22 years. We replaced the old boiler about 10 years ago. That has already gone the way of all flesh. Eight years old and we had to get a new one. This one is only a year and a half old and we had it serviced in October. It's already leaking. Unlucky or what?
What do you do late on a Saturday evening when you have an emergency? No heating or hot water in our house constitutes an emergency. You dig out the phone book and phone for an emergency plumber/boiler repairer.
- Hello, how can I help?
- My boiler seems to be pouring water (It's a lie -it's dripping)
- No problem, I can sort that for you.
- Oh good, no one else can help until Tuesday.
- Oh no, we can sort it out.
- Excellent . . .
A conversation follows that involves the man from British Gas trying to sell us an insurance plan. I don't want an expensive insurance plan (and it is expensive) I just want it fixed.
- Yes okay I'll pay the £169 callout fee, that's fine.
- I can't get anyone there until Tuesday.
What's the point with these damned people? Why lie so openly and then not care. By Tuesday I'll be able to phone the local guys who put it in. Ah well.
To anyone of about my age you may remember a wonderful Richard Carpenter series on TV called Catweazle. It was about a Middle Ages wizard who jumps forward in Time to discover life in 20th Century Britain (albeit late 1960s early 1970s Britain). I now officially declare myself him. Much like him, I am grey of beard and bemused by modernity. Much like him I am left to wander the modern world claiming that "nothing works". A man out of Time.
I got told off for shouting loudly in Anglo-Saxon at the boiler by my returning wife who said she could "hear you on the street".
2 comments:
Ah, the telling bone!
Nothing to offer about fixing a leaking boiler, I'm afraid -- we actually do have a British Gas contract, and they've been pretty good. Odd how these things wait until public holidays to happen.
Mike
And isn't the operative phrase, "wait until"?
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