A well-grounded suspicion
I consider myself to be fairly handy around the house. Part of the reason for this is that I really like to fix things and figure out how to fix things, and another part is that I am cheap. I have a really hard time knowing that the minute the service guy for whatever (A/C, Plumbing, Electrician) steps into your home, his clock is ticking at $100+ per hour.
This morning confirmed all my suspicions and will enforce my hesitancy with calling any of these people ever again.
Yesterday we noticed that the pilot light on our water heater was not staying lit, which consequently means that we have no hot water. I went and re-lit it once and it seemed to work fine. Last night comes, and we notice no hot water, and so sure enough when I check the pilot light, it is off.
This morning I decided to call the plumbers to come out and fix this problem. I had opened the manual for our hot water heater and found out what was wrong (the thermo-coupler was bad) and so I told the plumbing-receptionist over the phone that this was the problem (so as to avoid any unneccessary $100/hr labor charges in diagnosing the problem). She informed me that they charged $115/hr (holy crap!!) and that the part would be $30-$40. I'm resigned to the fact that we need hot water, and so I'm ready to spend this.
Then I get on the internet and find that replacing a thermo-coupler takes about 2 minutes and the part costs about $10.
About 30 seconds after reading this, I'm on the way to the Home Depot to buy one of these, and within 15 total minutes, the new thermo-coupler is installed (literally it takes 2 minutes to take the old one off and put the new one on) for a grand total of $10.63, plus the cost of driving 1.3 miles to home depot. I consider it to be negligible.
And so onward I march in my quest to never be scammed by service technicians again.
Broken Lives
Amazingly, my trip to my hometown this weekend is no different than previous ones. It brings out all kinds of thoughts and emotions. As usual, I ran in to many people that I know and I would like to share a few of their stories:
Friend #1- Middle aged man, wife recently passed away due to brain tumor. He used to be a calm drunk, now he is a raging drunk.
Friend #2- Younger than me, was an alcoholic in high school. No different now.
Friend #3- Younger than me, finalizing a divorce soon. Brother and sister are drug addicts.
Friend #4- My age, moving in with his girlfriend/baby's mother. Will get married soon, according to his father.
Friend #5- Was a good friend's girlfriend in high school. Was married for only a few months and then found out husband was cheating on her. Now divorced and engaged to be remarried. I will comment on a conversation with her later.
So you might be thinking that this post is about how terrible all of them are and how good I am, after all that is how it is looking. Well, you're partly right. It is not about how good I am, but rather about how good I sometimes feel around these people. I can't help but think that my life is pretty much in order. I'm doing things 'the right way' and surely haven't fallen into any of the BIG sins like they have. And then comes Sunday of our trip.
If you know me, you know that I don't need much encouragement in feeling pretty good about myself. In fact, I am probably the biggest Pharisee that you know, whether or not you know it. I am that whitewashed tomb that Jesus talked about. Going out of my way to position myself well before others, all the while trapping myself in lies about my own goodness. One of my favorite ways of doing this is to think and tell others that I am something that I'm not. I played in a golf tournament this weekend, and I played in the championship flight, because you know, I am a GOOD golfer. I was a good golfer in high school, and I got 2nd in a tournament after college, and I generally can beat most people I play with. I love being a good golfer, and if you don't watch it, I'll occassionally brag a little about it.
Sunday comes and I was scheduled to play in the morning round, and I did. I shot a 94. If you are unfamiliar with golf, that is a good round for people who don't play much or simply haven't had the time or opportunity to work on their game. But GOOD golfers don't shoot 94. I was crushed by this. I debated whether or not to turn in my scorecard for the world to see because of the surrounding embarrassment. I handed it in and I lost it. Cried my eyes out. Why? Because I WANTED PEOPLE TO THINK THAT I WAS GOOD. True, I was completely exasperated with the way that I played, I never felt comfortable over the ball and many times had no idea where it was going. But I was embarrassed. My pride could not handle seeing myself in last place at the end of the tournament, which is where I ended up (in a tie- you see, I had to say that).
I told you that I would return to friend #5, and so I do. After she tells Sarah and I about her recent divorce, she then tells us how hard it is to tell people like me about it. It is embarrassing, it is shameful, it is too hard. Although her ex-husbands cheating on her was out of her hands, she was still so embarrassed to talk about it. I know a little bit about the way she feels, though thankfully it did not come through the way of something like a divorce. When we realize that we live broken lives, it is embarrassing. We feel ashamed. We assume that everyone else is doing it right and expects us to do it right too. But my friend was honest, and Sarah and I noticed it immediately, it was refreshing. You see, it is okay to be embarrassed, it is okay to be ashamed of your life, but will you admit it? Will I admit it? I have a broken life, I do not do all things as well as I want people to think I do. I have to see that my house of cards has come down before I will ever look to Christ to put me back together. And it took a stupid golf tournament, something that I am really good at- remember? - to show me that. Ironic, but surely not surprising.
