They Don’t Build ‘Em Like They Used To

A truer statement there never was. 

So now that I got my artful writing out of the way, I’d like to tell you of an amazing journey, that took all of five minutes of true travel time, but in virtual procrastinator style, took a month to prepare for and lot of BSing myself more time. There are those who took my ‘putting it off’ style with great patience, and they know who they are(That’s you, Dad).

My preparations were all about ‘thinking through’ the conversation I might have with the person at the other end of the line. Things like, “I’ve got a 32″ westinghouse lcd tv that doesn’t show picture, it only plays sound. I don’t know if it’s faulty circuits….” and on and on that approach would go. Another, “My TV’s broke. What’s it gunna cost to fix it?” That was the other end of the spectrum of potential scripts that I would use for this task.

Today is the big day, I would tell myself. This I did many times over. Maybe it was a month I did that. But today it was actually true.

I looked up some repair shops (On a side note, don’t rely too much on fancy repair directory websites, dexonline is the place to go). Back to the story…. I called the first one on the page. This is how it went: “I’ve got a 32″ westinghouse lcd tv that doesn’t show picture, it only plays sound. I don’t know if it’s faulty circuits….” at this point I was cut off. “Hol, hol, hold it right there. Just so yer clear, kid, I can’t tell ya nothin’ about what it’s gunna cost fer yer repair. I need you to know that all we can tell ya over the phone is what it’s gunna cost ya fera diagnostic.” Me: “Sorry, I got it. How much for a diagnostic then?” The man replied that it was $50 dollars. Not too bad of a price. I then thought, ‘how could I be that stupid, thinking they could tell me the problem like they were a genie or something.’ That’s not too bad an idea, training repair men in mind reading….. Back to the story, sorry….

My next call was a little awkward. Let’s see if I can catch the mood of it in writing. After a few rings into the call, a lady answered. “For allin V epair……” and she stopped abruptly and tapered off at the same time. How do you do that? It’s impossible. But, it was done magnificently well.I was amazed at this, but I said nothing for a whole second which felt like ten. Then I stammered out, ” what does a re, ah, diagno, ah, what’ll it cost for a tv diagnostic?” $75 dollars was the answer. All I said then was, “Okay… buy”. Pathetic, Daniel, just pathetic.

So that was my adventure for the day. The moral of the story? Don’t think too much about a task so simple a monkey could do it.

~ by Daniel Crowder on December 16, 2009.