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It Has Remote Control

I am thrilled. I am so lucky. I am beside myself.
Unexpectedly, I have no children all weekend long.
It comes at a shock at 5:30 p.m. I just do not even know what to do with myself. I have had no time to plan!
I decide I will plan tonight, maybe write, and blare the music full blast until 4 a.m.-because I can!!!!
But because I am home anyway, I will do a load of laundry.
Except here we go again with the no-power to my basement appliances.
I start to feel like this is punishment for being so happy to be without children for the week-end. Now I will have to find someone to help me.
Cindy has fixed this before. But she had time to plan for her Friday evening. She is not going to be home.
My mind begins to race. I know so few people who even have knowledge of this kind of stuff. Or maybe everyone has knowledge of breaker systems and I am just under some assumption you have to be a brain surgeon to get them.
Ian.
I will call Ian. He is afterall, a man. Men usually know more about this stuff.
The phone rings six times.
I can hear the annoyance in Ian's hello.
"Hi Ian," I say in my happy-chirpy-crazy me way.
I know he is rolling his eyes. Sigh. "Hi, Beth."
"How you doing? What's new with you?" I say.
"Just bought a new fan."
"Oh, yeah?" My mind races. Man. New fan. "Does it have a radio in it?"
"No, but it has a remote control!" Ian exclaims.
"For real? That is too cool."
I ask Ian for his help and he agrees. He will be right over.
And he is. In twenty minutes.
"Come on," he says to me when he gets here. "I am going to show you how to use the breaker box."
I trot along down my stairs behind him. Cool! I am all for today's lesson on how to be a boy.
"See the list?" he points to a long white one.
"Uh-huh," I say.
"See how it says kitchen, and it is marked with a 1? This one says master bedroom and it has a 2 beside it?"
"Right," I say.
"And this one says basement. It has a number 6. All you got to do is find the number 6 on these black switches and flick."
"Uh-huh," I say again. "I have been down here before. How do you know that list is right?"
"It is."
"But how do you know?"
"I don't-but it is."
"See? Even you have doubts," I accuse him. "I am going to go upstairs now. Fix this please, Ian. And if the whole house blows up, at least I didn't do it."
"Fixed," Ian says a few minutes later when he meets me up in the kitchen.
"You wanna drink?" I ask, already pouring him a glass of pop.
"Yep."
Ian and I sat around talking for two hours.
In a pause, Ian says, "It stands 36 inches high."
What? Oh, that fan, again. It is the fourth time tonight he has brought that thing up-
Oh, jesus.
"Ian, I am a horrible friend. Go home and play with your new toy. I really want to get to my music cranking, anyway!"
"Thank god." he says, laughing. "Gimmie a hug."
I oblige and as he has me wrapped up in his bear hug he says "Remote control. Amazing."
I shake my head at him as he lets go. "Thanks Ian, for fixing my power issue."
"You got it," he points and winks and is gone.

If one more person can manage to not blow up my house, I will believe breaker 6 really is for my basement.


Comments

ger said…
Sometimes when the band that lives below us is practicing their songs that are "reinventing the style of music made popular by such great bands as pink floyd and led zeppelin" i think about going into their basement, which is attached to ours and looking for the number that coincides with their living room.

But then I realize that if I did that they would call the cops the next time we decided to bowl with beer bottles and boulders in our hallway at 3am.
Saturday, 12 June 2004 at 14:51:00 GMT-4
Queenie said…
I am glad to have made you realize their is a reason to appreciate your neighbors.
Saturday, 12 June 2004 at 17:21:00 GMT-4
AJ in Nashville said…
Pssst...

Trust the fan-man. Put all your chips on Number Six...


:)
Monday, 14 June 2004 at 04:44:00 GMT-4
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