Air Conditioner Insider

Posted on August 24, 2003 in Book of Days Social Justice Weather

Note: This is part of a series based on exercises from A Writer’s Book of Days. It’s something of a rebellion against the Friday Five and similar tupperware content memes.

Today’s topic: Write about being on the inside.

I wish I was an air conditioning industry insider.

If I were, my air conditioner would be fixed by now. The moment my air conditioner stopped cooling, I could say to my crew “Get it done.” They wouldn’t conduct any three week long tests. They’d know by the nature of the problem what they had to do. “The freon’s leaking? Sounds like we need to plug a leak.” They’d feel around with the tips of their fingers to find it and when they felt the sensory ridges freezing, they’d shout “He needs a new condensor” or “we must replace the line!” And by five o’clock, I’d be gulping up refrigerated air.

I bet the Resident Bush doesn’t wait three weeks for a test plus however long it takes to get the part if the Lincoln Bedroom gets to feeling muggy. He tells a Secret Service Man who talks to the maintenance supervisor who calls the Pentagon to get a new unit flown in by jet from Fairbanks, Alaska if that’s what it takes to get pink frills cooled in time for his bedding down at 10.

That’s the problem with this country, however. We have big men and little men. In a democratic society, your name gets put on a list and you’re fixed in the order you called in. But our capitalists don’t like to wait. They must shove themselves to the head of the line. “Give me what I want now — before these fifty million others.” The little guys get pushed to the back and pushed to the back, left waiting for their services until they are delivered six weeks past the fall equinox or the day after they day of cardiovascular failure in a record September heat wave.

If I promised to vote for him, would Bush put in a call and get my appointment — postponed once from Friday because (they said) the best friend of the son of the installer was killed in an accident — moved up to tomorrow?

The fact is that it shouldn’t take influence. It should be put down in a little book and done in that order, when they promise to deliver.

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• Shameless Agitator
  
• Joker on the Run

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Tomorrow’ topic/prompt: Write about the morning after.