Cultural Tidbits from the Repair Man (Men)

I have a story to tell with no illustrations. I hope the ones I do have will suffice.



Last week, I received an email from our landlord. It said Urgent! (But it was in Spanish so it said Urgente!-some tricky stuff eh?) She told me that the man who's business is below us saw water dripping from our apartment. Susana, my landlord was of course worried that our piso was flooded. I quickly checked each corner and found no standing water. Whew. So I called Susana, told her I saw no water, but that I would speak with the man downstairs about the supposed water coming from our apartment.

I peaked in his shop and told him I lived upstairs, and had heard there was water coming from our place. He quickly showed me a spot on the bottom of an extended part of our piso. It was in between Renae's room and the "office." I could tell the spot was wet and the floor was cracking. I thanked the man, and went on my way. As I walked, I thought, "Oh great . . now we have water problems and this will probably take forever to fix!"



As it turned out, I was very wrong. I talked with our truly awesome landlords that day and they sent someone later on in the day to check it out! When he arrived, I couldn't believe someone was there to fix it already!

As it turned out, I was very wrong. Again. You see, here is what I've learned through this process: (the answer is at the bottom in case you're in a hurry) This particular man who came the first day came to look at the wall where water was supposedly coming out. Then he busted a hole in our wall to get a GOOD look. After doing that, he told us what was wrong and that it needed fixed, then he left.

So the next day, we had to check the pipe inside the wall and see if it was wet. Yep, it was.
So then we called that same guy.
The first guy then called our landlord.
Then our landlord called their insurance company.
The insurance company called someone to come look at the bad pipe and determine that what the 1st man said was true. It was.
So our landlord called a repair man. (I'm not sure what the first guy was-demolition?)
He came earlier this week and fixed the pipe.I thought surely this would be the end of the hole in the wall.

As it turned out, again, I was very wrong.

When the repair man had finished fixing the pipe (and creating a bigger hole in the wall) he picked up his mess, said Adios, then headed out. I wanted to follow him and ask, "But aren't you going to fix that hole in my wall?"

After a few days of peaking in on Renae's room through the hole in the living room wall, we wondered if anyone was going to fix the hole. Finally, yesterday, a 4th man came. Yes, that's right, I said 4th man. Wait,that's not right. I forgot about the OTHER guy that came twice. Let's review:

1st man-demolition. "You've got a bad pipe. Needs replaced."

2nd man-insurance- "You've got a bad pipe. Needs replaced."

3rd man-heat on/off switch guy-"I'm here to turn off the heat."

4th man-pipe repair- "You've got a bad pipe. I'm here to fix the pipe and nothing else."

5th man-heat on/off switch guy. "I'm here to turn your heat back on."

6th man-wall repair guy-"I'm here to put the wall back together."

You're wondering if there is a 7th man aren't you? Well we are sure he exists. The 7th man is the paint guy. He comes after the wall guy's repair is dry enough to paint. It's scheduled to be dry the day my parents arrive. Which means we are trying to get that sucker dry so the paint man can come paint the wall white, so we can paint it the correct color before my parents get here. I guess that makes us the 8th and 9th "men."

So we learned that a problem will be fixed quickly. But it will take several men all doing their very (VERY) specialized task before it's completely fixed.

Coming to a jmasson.blogspot.com near you TOMORROW: Renae draws on herself and some on the piece of paper.