Tuesday, March 09, 2010

one point twenty-one gigawatts

We are having some routine (if a little late) maintenance done on our heater.  The same company came out a few times last summer to service our wily air conditioner.  On one occasion, the technician conveyed the diagnosis in terms I heard as "yadda yadda yadda capacitor blah blah blah..."

(What do I know about air conditioning units?)

Shortly thereafter, we had to call them back out to service the ailing air conditioner again.  When this technician arrived, I tried to explain to him what he probably already knew if he had read the notes in our file from the previous technician's visit.  Nonetheless, I went ahead and told him that when his colleague had been out before, he mentioned something about the flux capacitor.  The guy handled himself pretty well, barely batting an eye and responding politely that "no, ma'am, that's something from a movie, but the capacitor is (blah blah blah)." 

Whatever.

Allow my gaffe to serve as a public service announcement of sorts.  Be sure to think twice before speaking on this subject with anyone well-versed in the mechanics of air conditioning units -- or time travel.

2 comments:

  1. Probably not the first time he's heard that, and probably not the last. ;)

    It reminds me of the time I had the dryer repairman come out because the dryer wouldn't stop beeping, and he (actually there were two of them - he had an assistant) diagnosed the problem as a low-batteried smoke alarm in the cabinet above said dryer!

    Thank you for sharing this, we are still giggling. (Good movie, BTW! Can you believe your sister has never seen it?!? We must remedy that soon!)

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