Rip Taylor’s long lost twin came to our house this morning. I swear the man looked exactly like Rip Taylor – weird hair and all. Hair like that is fine when you are a comedian, but is questionable at best when you are a repairman.
What a freaky guy! I’m almost at a loss for words. He came over to fix our central air. I don’t want to bore you with all the details of his visit, but he left quite an impression on me. I feel I can’t do him justice with mere words. He is a living caricature.
It took him four tries and four separate phone conversations to write down my correct address. My street name is not difficult to pronounce and I even s-p-e-l-l-e-d it the first time I told it to him.
But, here is the really weird part and I give you my word on this. No bullshit. He told me after he put some freon in our air conditioning unit that it probably has a leak. He said we could replace the whole unit for what it would cost us for him to find the leak and repair it. Here’s the good part. Are you ready? He stood in my kitchen and said, “You should wait for lightning to hit it, and then your homeowners insurance will have to cover the cost of replacing the unit.”
I have never had such a difficult time not laughing in someone’s face as I did right then. I am laughing my ass off thinking about it. He was giving me what he thought to be serious advice.
He also mentioned how he had another customer who “got lucky” when lightning struck his air conditioner. I wonder how long the poor guy had to wait around for this miracle to happen. How common an occurrence could this be?
I guess since an expert gave me this wise counsel, I would be reckless and foolhardy not to heed his words. Or, maybe we could just replace the unit. Yeah, that’s probably the next best thing to just waiting for lightning to strike.