So, in the suburban family
life files, living on one income with the kids, house, and dog, we've
finally entered into large appliance maintenance hell. This is when
you have to pay hundreds of dollars on fixing old appliances and cars
because you cannot afford to buy new ones, but you can't exactly
afford to fix the old thing either.
Today's crisis involved
the clothes dryer.
After ten years and living
through four household moves, the heating thing-a-ma-jig and the
motor finally gave out. So, spousal arguments ensued between the idea
of spending money to fix the damn thing or to buy the cheapest new
dryer out there and hope it's not a lemon. The former option would at
least give us a few more years of use until I found more paying work
and could afford an upgrade to a better dryer. The latter option
might have us buying another one in a few years anyway. The math of
fixing vs buying gave me a headache, but the bottom line was, either
way most of it was going on the credit card.
So, I called the repair
guy. Unfortunately, I've already developed a fine working
relationship with the repair guy over the washer and the oven. His
name is Jose.
Jose arrived and took the
thing apart. As it was laid out on the floor of the hallway that I
refer to as my laundry room, Jose showed me the motor and the drum,
which were both in obvious decay.
On his way into the garage
to find the gas line, Jose noted that we had a “pony bike.” This
is a child sized, but very real motorcycle. It looked like a
miniature Kawasaki. This was not the subtle and cute European
motorbikes that go about ten miles an hour. This was an actual, mini
road chopper. It was a bad idea when they made these things. I mean,
really -- little kids on real motorcycles, speeding along at 50 mph?
And it was an even worse idea when my husband found and bought this
one at a garage sale for $40.
“The boy can learn to
ride it to school!” he said, referring to our 7 year old son.
“I don't think so,” I
said.
It languished in the back
of our garage for two years, until Jose spied it.
“Ah, you have a pony
bike!” he informed me, excitedly.
“Yes, we've only used it
once.” I said.
“They don't make those
anymore.”
I gave him a sideways
look. He was enthused.
“Do you want it?” I
asked him.
“What?”
“Yeah, are you
interested in making a trade?”
He stared at me for a
minute. This concept was foreign to him.
Let me interject here that
I live on a somewhat affluent street in a somewhat affluent
neighborhood in the most affluent county in my state. People don't
generally bicker with gardeners and repairmen over a couple hundred
dollars.
I drive an old grey
mini-van and have no flowering shrubs in my yard. I wear solid color
shirts and capri pants a lot. I appear to most as a rather uninspired
middle class, conservative mom. These people don't know me very well.
The back story is longer
than I'd prefer to go into here, but I will say that I don't have a job at the moment and am trying to write a novel. . . and that I am the
descendent of Armenian merchants and traders. I grew up seeing some
of the best hagglers in the world in action, namely, my mother and
grandmothers. Over the years, my negotiating abilities might have
waned a bit, but when the chips are down, we revert to our ancestry.
“Yeah,” I said. “I'll
trade you your labor costs for the bike.”
I knew Jose was a one-man
shop. He didn't know what to make of this offer. He was still staring at me, doing the math in his head. Brand new, those pony bikes
cost around $700. He charged about
$60 per hour labor and would be here more than two hours doing the
work.
“You order the parts
direct?” he asked.
“Done.” I said and
held out my hand for him to shake – the old world way.
Now, the dryer works, my credit is good, and the bike is out of my garage.
No comments:
Post a Comment