It's All In The Timing

Timing is so important to things, isn't it? There's good parts about timing: being somewhere on time, having the right tool or accessory just when you need it, getting up on time, etc.
But timing can sometimes stink, too. Have you ever been missing a shoe or an earring? You hang onto the one piece you have of the set because you know eventually you will find the other. Finally, a year or so down the line, you toss the shoe in an effort to get a little more organized. Only a day or two later, your new organizational skills help you find the mate. Bad timing. Or you come across that receipt for a Christmas present twenty times. You even put it in a safe place. But after Christmas when you need to return the gift, you can't find the receipt for anything. You know it was right here, you can even picture how it was laying on the table, but it's nowhere in sight now.
Our bad timing had to do with our air conditioner. Thursday I came home from work, and as I went up the stairs, the heat and humidity slapped me in the face.
"Why is it 79 degrees up here?"
No one knew because I'm the only one that usually messes with the thermostats. My husband checked the unit inside, and then went outside to check things out while I watched the temperature climb to 80. We finally came to the consensus that the air conditioner wasn't working. (Aren't we smart!)
It was after five, so any call to a repairman was going to cost more than the usual high fees that we couldn't afford. So we decided to wait to call until in the morning. We turned on ceiling fans, opened windows and slept in 82 degree weather that night.
Now, I know some of you living in other countries are thinking, "Big deal! We never have air conditioning!" To those of you I would say, "Been there, done that." In Uganda it averaged between 90 and 110 degrees and we did not have air. Please don't think I'm whining. (Even though I know I am.) I can live without air, but if we have it, I think it should work!
The timing part of it is this: Thursday through Saturday we had record high temperatures for this time of year. But a cold front was supposed to come through Saturday night, and this week we're barely going to make it into the 70's. If the air conditioner could have waited two more days, we wouldn't have needed to suffer! (Not a big fan of suffering, in case you couldn't tell.)
When the repairman came the next afternoon--why is it they can never get there in the morning?--he said all the ducts were blocked and it would cost $500 to fix it. We don't have that kind of money. So my husband paid the $90 thanks-for-stopping-by-and-being-no-help-at-all fee and sent him on his way. Then he proceeded to take the unit apart and clean it himself. He was absolutely filthy and he couldn't get it completely cleaned out, but he did get it clear enough so the unit would work again. He turned the air back on after I got home Friday, and then we spent the next hour wandering from vent to vent, trying to see if air was flowing. We also watched the thermostat anxiously. It dropped to 79.
My husband had to take the teens in our church to an activity that evening, so he showered and left, instructing me to "keep an eye on that thing". I checked it every half hour or so, looking at the thermostat, pulling the door open to stare at the unit (don't know what good that did) and sniffed the air to make sure nothing was burning, or blowing up, or anything like that. The thermostat dropped, degree by degree, until it was finally at comfortable levels again. Terry was very proud of himself when he got home that night.
Sunday morning I woke up to 49 degree weather outside. I doubt we'll need the air conditioner this week. But at least it's ready for the next weather surge. And since it's a timing issue, we'll probably have record high temperatures around Christmas time!