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Ever laugh at someone's joke only to realize they were in fact not making a joke at all?
Our garage door stopped opening for us on Wednesday afternoon. The automatic feature doesn't lift it more than a couple inches, and we can't get it to work manually either.* So we called the landlord, who willingly called maintenance workers to look at the problem for us. Our regular maintenance man, Vern, has been ill for a period of time, so there are new guys who will be coming to fix the garage, the landlord told us. He described them to us and assured us that despite their appearance (as redneck hicks, from all I can tell), they are friendly and professional people who have been doing good work for him. Great. No problems here.
Off we go to work on our bicycles yesterday. When I return home, hoping to find a garage door that will open, I instead find a note from our new maintenance personel. Call me, it says. Uh oh. Dreading what I will hear (we need a new part and it will be at least a week; we'll probably have to blast it open; your dog bit me and I'm suing), I pick up the phone. He wonders when would be a good time to come by. They had stopped by earlier in the day, but had assumed there was someone still at home not answering the door. After all, they could tell a dog was loose in the house and the car was in the garage.
. . . .
Of course the car was in the garage! That's the problem! I wanted to laugh, but I held my tongue and assured them that we're out of the house by 7 and that the dog is personable. These guys may be friendly and do good work, but . . . come on!
*Yes, yes. I know about the catch at the top that you pull to go from the motorized to manual operation. That part goes smoothly, but then the actual opening doesn't happen. Either the door is too heavy for either Bill or I to lift or they did something when they installed the automatic feature to prevent manual opening.
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