Primal Scream Therapy OR My Daily Life

Recently I had to deal with contractors.  Inevitably one of them effed up and I get to blog about it.  It's great fun.  Snarky but fun.  It wasn't fun at the time it happened.  Our a/c unit at our house has a pan under it to catch condensation.  When this pan is full it means the primary pan is overflowing.  This is bad because this unit is in our attic and we don't want water falls coming into our second floor, down the stairs or through the floor to our first floor and creating a pool in the crawl space.  (Unlike the toilet leaking through the flange, HIM decided we should get on top of this.)  So I contacted the warranty people.  Yea, warranty!

(A note about the YouTube vid above.  This is Sam Kinison screaming.  Sam Kinison was a comedian who liked to scream.  Sam probably also had an ulcer.  Whenever I get irate with customer service issues, which seems to happen a lot, a really, really lot, I think of Sam Kinison.  Sadly, I don't think screaming at customer service reps really works well.  But I enjoy thinking about it.)

(This also makes me think of a scene from a Rodney Dangerfield movie in which Sam Kinison plays a history prof, which I'm forced to share because it's probably not pertinent.  But it is funny and it's my blog, so there be it.)  (I never cried in college.  Sometimes I wanted to throw something at a professor like Sam Kinison's character does with the desk top, but I never got to do that, either.)

(Let me just say that TBS ruins this bit because they substitute another word for "pussy."  The naughty word substitute people at TBS are pussies.  They should just bleep it out because everyone really knows what the word was supposed to be anyway.)

But wait.  The warranty people contacted a local contractor, who shall remain nameless because I intend on speaking vilely about them at great length.  Let's call them Contractor Smith.  Smith sent a guy over who wrote down the model and number of the unit, spent a few minutes in the attic taking pictures, and said, "We need to see if this is covered.  The office, Doris Mae Sue Bob or Sally Jo Martha, will call you back."  (I know I covered this in a previous blog.  But this is important because this is a continuing saga.  I know people out there really want to know.  I know they do.  And if they don't they should.)  So Smith didn't call me back.  I called them back.  Alice Lee Ruby said she would call the warranty people.  The warranty people called me back and said, "No can do.  Not covered.  It's the secondary pan that's broken and that's specifically not covered in the warranty."  This is true.  It says that.  I had the warranty in my hand and I was looking at it.

However, I called another contractor who had a good set of references and he came over and said, "It's the primary drain pan.  It's clogged up.  I'll unclog it for you."  He did this.  Then he discussed why there should never be water in the secondary drain pan.  I'm getting to be a drain pan expert of mysterical proportion here.  (Before last week I didn't even know what a primary drain pan was and if asked I would have thought it had something to do with my brain.  Seriously.)  (Call me the Drain Pan Whisperer.  Haha.)

Once I paid the second contractor his $90 fee and called HIM to gloat, Contractor Smith called back to say they could fix the problem for only $300 to $500.  Then she said, "But wait, it's more complicated.  Say $750."  Then in the conversation the number slipped up to $1000.  Oh, my, telephone conversations are costly, aren't they?  Then she tried to tell me what I really needed was a whole new system which would cost only $4300.  I love contractors.  (Can you sense the sarcasm in the writing there?  I assure you it's very, very thick.)

(I'm all over clips today.  I think we should all scream out the window.  My new neighbors should be thrilled with me.)

So you'd think I'd be happy but the primary drain pan obviously plugged up again the next day and the secondary drain pan is draining again out the side of the house onto the kitchen's roof.  Drip.  Drip.  Drip.  HIM spent a half hour on the computer trying to see if he could fix it himself.  He broke out the wet/dry vac and vacu-sucked the holy living crap out of the drain line of the primary drain pan.  It worked for a while.  Then he did it again.  It worked for a while.  Then HIM went back to the computer to do some more valuable research.  HIM started to get crabby.  You can tell because his eyebrows descend into his eyes and you can't tell them apart.

The next morning I woke up frisky and called the warranty people again.  You see, the primary freaking drain pan is COVERED.  There wouldn't be water in the secondary pan if the primary drain pan wasn't clogged.  I talked to a nice young man named Shawn, who is obviously reconsidering his choice of work environment once he got off the phone with me.  Perhaps he would do well in the a/c unit field since he now has a better understanding of it.

(I don't know why I added the dog, but it sounded kind of like the noise I've been making lately whenever I look at my MasterCard bill, so why not?  I'm not sure what would happen if I owned this dog.  I would own a lot of ear plugs or possibly listen to my iPod a bunch.)

So today I went to look at the drain pan, after spending a restless night concocting arguments to use upon another unsuspecting dupe at the warranty people's place o' deception.  (I bet their people have a very high turnover.)  I had all kinds of arguments about pre-existing conditions and primary drain pans and secondary drain pans.  HIM even took pictures of the primary drain pan where he pointed a laser pointer at the problem area.

I had to include HIM's photo for posterity and some other legal reasons that HIM spouted at me.  Now you know the whole picture.

Anyway, after all that drama the damn thing's working right now.  I might need to swear off writing about HI for a few blogs.  (That's Home Improvement for all of you people who still live in apartments.)

Who wants to help me paint my daughter's room?