Update on the tragi-comedy that is my life.

What a day I have had.

This morning, I woke completely refreshed from finally getting a good night’s sleep and then quickly ditched “refreshed” in exchange for “panicked.” Having checked the weather radar, and knowing I would probably need to leave work at some point to meet the a/c repair guy, I went in to work at just past the crack of dawn. (Because really – if it’s still dark out when you leave the house? – it qualifies as the very crack of dawn.) There, I quickly blurted a quick break-down post about why there wasn’t a (real) post and then whined to a friend who is particularly good at letting me do just that. (She is awesome, yo.) I let loose about how worried I am for my (ex) mother-in-law who is in intensive care with heart issues, and how I can’t even visit her because certain ex-in-laws would cause a scene if I ran into them (and that is not the place for that). I whined about how hard it is that my Insignificant Other is out of the country, even though I know he’s there for an important reason. And I whined about my stupid, crisis-inducing, house-shaking, non-functional air conditioner! And right as I was reading my friend’s sweet, soothing reply, my IO popped online to check on me and I promptly got all weepy. “I hate this week!” I blubbered.

And then ThePlaceThatShallNotBeNamed got all insane and I was distracted until it was time to meet my service tech. The company who originally installed our a/c unit couldn’t meet me until Friday – and even then, they could only give me a four-hour window during which they might-or-might-not show up would meet me, and they couldn’t tell me if it would be morning or afternoon until Friday morning. Thankfully, another small company I’ve heard advertised was able to meet me between two and four today (and the Tech beat me here by five minutes).

The Tech was really, really nice. He was understanding and professional, qualities I don’t often see in service techs. He joked with me that the a/c probably wouldn’t make the noise for him – and it didn’t. He ran the diagnostic test and told me that he was pretty sure that it was because I was almost completely out of freon. Without it, my unit would be overworking, overheating, and possibly vibrating because it wouldn’t have the freon to cushion the friction. So he added THREE GALLONS of freon to the tune of $200. Plus the $100 diagnostics fee just to come out. I then plied the poor tech with every question I could possibly think of (including what to do if the Mysterious Churning Noise came back). He answered every ridiculous what-if question I could throw at him and didn’t even laugh at me when I asked if he thought this Mysterious Churning Noise and vibrations could make the house catch on fire. He really did go above and beyond. When he asked if the house had been cooling and I told him the girls’ room was always warm, the Tech went around and checked my air filters and my vents. Then he offered to climb around in the attic and make sure “that smooshed duct” I told him about wasn’t too important. (It wasn’t. It was the exhaust fan for the laundry room that I never use.) He was so nice and went so far beyond the call of duty that I will heartily recommend Avery Air to anyone in the metroplex. Seriously.

So that was the good news. I squeaked in just under $300 (which was coincidentally the amount I had mentioned to my sister that I could maybe afford). The bad news: the lack of freon means I probably definitely have a leak. Tech could have run a test to find out where the leak was and if it was repairable; but, he cautioned me that he almost never found a leak that was fixable and the test was $100. So. There went that option. Now we just sit tight and see how long the freon lasts. If it runs out within 30 days, Avery will apply all of the cost towards a new unit. Any longer than 30 days and I’m on my own. That’s the bad news: I’m in a waiting game. When the waiting runs out, I have to replace not only the outside unit, but the inside unit as well because my particular model is being discontinued after this year. All of that shouldn’t cost more than….oh, $8,000. Yes, thousand. Eight thousand, in fact.

There was a small kernel of hope: the Tech mentioned that when he connected the hose to add the freon, he noticed that the connector-pipe thingy (technical term, that is) was loose and he was able to tighten it quite a bit. Hopefully that is where the leak came from. Andwillnotreturn. Because unless the air conditioner fairy comes a-callin’, I’m screwed.

One last little footnote to the craziness that was my day: about fifteen minutes after Tech Guy had left, my cell phone rang. I figured it was a crisis at ThePlaceThatShallNotBeNamed. Instead, it was a number I didn’t recognize. That, turns out, belongs to Tech Guy’s personal cell phone. He was so cute falling over his words (in a very manly, grown up way, of course) as he explained he never does this, but I was so positive and funny about my horrible week (I may have told him my “feral” ants story) that he had to take a chance. If his whole spiel was a practiced pick-up line, it was good. Probably would have worked, too, if I weren’t seeing someone.

And there you have it. Another whole day is (almost) gone. Whatever else it was, it was a very clever distraction.

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