#94 The Repairman Cometh

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I have it on good authority that the furnace repairman will be at my house sometime between the hours of five a.m. and midnight today.

I couldn’t be more thrilled. With the daytime high temps lower than the voting age in most states, this was precisely the wrong time for my furnace to develop an attitude. At the tender age of twelve, it began acting like a spoiled teenager. My polite request for heat was met with the sound of a heavy, frustrated sigh reverberating through the heat ducts and a blast of cold air from the vents.

Whether you’re dealing with a willful teen or a reluctant machine, the approach is the same â repeatedly flick the reset switch. Except that teens don’t have reset switches and the ones on machines appear to be mostly decorative.

Having exhausted my entire repertoire of furnace repair techniques, I broke down and decided I had to call the furnace repairman…
 

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NOTES: 

• The title of this episode is a nod to Eugene O’Neill’s play The Iceman Cometh. There’s a good write-up about the play in the Wikipedia at:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iceman_Cometh.
• Want to avoid my fate and try a bit of DIY? Check out the article at:
  http://tinyurl.com/yuotkf.
• When I’m not podcasting, I’m busy planning a BIG surprise for the 100th Episode. Keep listening for details and…to get advance notice, join the Short Cummings Audio Facebook Group.

Tags: humor essay | funny story | home repairs | furnace | technician | comedy