Friday, June 25, 2004

Compress This, Pal

He said they don’t make ’em like they used to. Only, he didn’t say it in a stereotypical–Maytag repairman way. This guy--Tomas--was a very, ahem, well-built fellow, I believe from Puerto Rico or at least Spanish-speaking Bronx.

What he really said was, “Jew know this used to be a big-dog company, Frigidaire. But they like all the rest of them. They don’t make them very good no more because…jew know, ’frigerators used to last 20, 30 years, but the big companies don’t make no money. So now you get this, and people have to go spend six, seven hundred dollars every couple of years.”

The short of it is, after 1.5 days of making some funky rattling sound off-and-on that I chose to ignore--much like I do a wanky subway conversation—the fridge died. Did I notice that every sip I took of Brita water was increasingly lukewarm? Did I bother to check on whether or not I still had the fridge’s warranty? Did I even mildly let it concern me?

It took the puddle slowly washing over the kitchen floor to provoke me, finally. I busted out Frigidaire.com and next thing you know, Tomas was on his way--a happy turn of events for 4 p.m. on the Friday of Pride weekend.

Thirty-five bucks “just for him to walk in the door” I believe was how the saucy wench on the phone put it. This is how it played out once he got here: He pulled the fridge out (appx. 5 seconds), he took off the base board on the back (appx. 7 seconds), then he tapped on the round black metal boxy thing and said, “Jew see that? That’s the compressor.”

Me: “Yeah?”

Him: “That’s not working.”

Me: “OK.”

Then a little this-and-that, followed by Him: “$250.” (Whole exchange: appx. 90 seconds)

At the very least, and bless his well-cardio’d heart, Tomas said he can replace “the compressor” tomorrow. (As for the quotes there, for all I know of the inner workings of major appliances he might as well have called it a rotator plug or johnson rod or WMD.)

So I guess it’s warm beer tonight.