I promised you a story. A story of an electrician. An electrician for Willie and Indy.
I am that electrician.
Recently, I headed to Willie and Indy’s apartment. My intent was to illustrate the capabilities of both a FitBit and an Apple Watch. Although they ultimately chose the Apple Watch, getting them to the decision wasn’t easy. There are always a dozen things that go wrong when I need to sit down with Willie and Indy.
When such an occasion arises, I make an appointment. If I say “Oh, I’ll stop by later” Willie will say “We’ll be home!” Which is true about 0.001% of the time she says it. There’s always something they’re doing Willie forgets about.
If I make an appointment, the chances I’ll succeed in seeing Willie and Indy become more like 4.004%. But if I make an appointment, remind Willie the day before, then remind her again the morning of, my chances of success hit an impressive 54%.
Deciding on an Apple Watch or FitBit was important for my sanity, so I made the requisite appointment and phone calls. When I arrived at Willie and Indy’s apartment, Willie was baking.
Not just baking. Baking. Like it was Christmas. Brownies. Cookies. The kitchen looked like the display case of a bakery. I assumed Willie was finishing her task momentarily, about to sit with me and Indy. Ready to discuss the thing that could help me sleep at night.
No.
Indy and Willie first pointed out the TV. They have two flat screens – one mounted on the living room wall, one on the bedroom wall. The living room TV was broken. Willie had arranged to send it out to be fixed. But the electrician who installed it couldn’t remove it from the wall unless he was doing another electrical job in the apartment.
And the apartment maintenance staff are not permitted to perform such tasks. So Indy had tried to remove the TV from the wall.
He managed to get all but one screw disengaged from the mounting frame. The TV hung cockeyed on the wall, like a picture tilted by ghostly hands in a horror movie.
I wish they had called me before even scheduling a repair. I probably could have figured out the problem.
But Willie and Indy are loath to ask me for help. It’s great because it means by the time I know about a problem, Willie and Indy have already made it many times worse than it was originally. It makes for great problem-solving skills. I don’t do escape rooms because Willie and Indy are an escape room.
I asked them how they planned to get the TV off the wall. They didn’t know.
Yeah. I decided to be the electrician and take the TV off the wall.
I had to move the entertainment unit before I could access the crooked TV. Before I could do that, I had to remove the other TV.
Despite their failure with the living room TV, Willie and Indy had managed to get the bedroom TV from the wall. It was now in the living room, propped up on the entertainment unit.
The TV was held in place with a bag of sugar on one end, a bag of flour on the other. And it had been stuck on CNN for the better part of the preceding twenty-four hours.
The entertainment unit. My grandfather bought it for my mom. I was five when he died, so that thing was in our house pretty much my whole life. I’m familiar with the story, that it’s the only thing my grandfather ever gave my mom.
“You know,” Willie said, “we had that entertainment unit in our house for years before we moved here. It’s the only thing my father ever gave me.”
I reminded her I wasn’t actually an electrician, just playing one for the TV – I was in our house for years before they moved to the apartment too. I’m not a stranger. I know all about the entertainment unit.
And I am the best thing my father ever gave her.
I got in a little trouble over that because I’m not an only child.
Dust and detritus layered the floor behind the entertainment unit. They stared up at me, mocking my need for order. My Obsessiveness would let me go no further until I had cleaned up the mess.
That was when I noticed the rear third of the entertainment unit was coated with dust.
Yes. I cleaned that too.
I’m not a monster. How can I be expected to pull a TV from the wall when there are messes to clean up?
And tell me that isn’t a metaphor for my relationship with Willie and Indy.
Looking behind the TV, I could see one screw holding the TV on the track. I tried and tried, but no matter what I did I couldn’t lift that screw out of the track. Nor would it slide out. Sweat began to pool in the small of my back and under my mask.
Not because I can’t handle physical exertion. You try lifting a TV from a wall in an apartment with two ovens running and a thermostat set at about 105 degrees. Is the apartment an autoclave? Are they trying to kill bacteria? Grow it? Get a tan?
As I struggled and struggled with that TV, Willie thanked me for my work. And told me not to stress. If I wasn’t successful, the electrician said he’d take it down.
You can go back and read what I said about the electrician. But you didn’t read it wrong. She told me the electrician wasn’t coming.
“Someday, I’m going to write about this,” I muttered.
Willie ordered Indy over to help me, because if there’s anything you want it’s the 82-year-old guy with Parkinson’s muddling around with loose wires and cables on the floor.
I typed “91” into my phone, ready to hit “1” then “Send” if Indy tripped. Then I began giving Indy orders on how to help.
Before the last word could even form in my brain, the TV was off the wall. I almost fell over with the full weight of it in my hands. Indy stood there, grinning at me.
“How did you do that?” I asked. More importantly, why didn’t he do that before?
“Trade secret,” Indy said, shuffling off over the wires, never once tripping or losing his balance.
Next I set about fixing the cable hookup, so Indy and Willie could do more than watch Anderson Cooper. I love Anderson, but does anyone need a full day of CNN when there are so many Big Bang Theory reruns to watch?
I replaced the bags of sugar and flour, as I imagine any good electrician would. Finally, an hour after I arrived to talk Apple Watches, drenched in sweat and dust, I sat down to talk.
Surely, I figured, by now Willie would be done baking.
I figured wrong. I sat with Indy and explained the options, then explained them again whenever Willie shouted “What?!” from the kitchen.
I mean, that’s no way to treat your electrician.
Remember the story I told you about the wine? How I messed it up, but didn’t tell Willie? Doesn’t seem so bad now, does it?
Because you now you know.
I’m not a sommelier. I’m an electrician.
With the world’s worst customers.