When Things Fall Apart

 

One of the joys of being renters is that when something goes wrong, we can put it on the "portal" and Alonso or Adriano comes to fix it.  They often come within hours and they are cheerful.  We always fill out the subsequent survey with high praise and Alonso really likes the banket (Dutch pastry) I have made him for Christmas and wondered if I made it for Easter too.  Plus, we don't make many repair requests.  Apparently some renters do and are not a joy to Alonso.  Alonso always greets us from his van, "James!  Maria!"  

Alonso's white van

Our big request was last summer when we couldn't get the A/C to get the temperature down to the 77 or 78 we had it set on.  Alonso came with his various meters and decided we needed a new several thousand dollar unit.  He was very pleased to show us the size of the one that was put in--it dwarfs the neighbors' units!  We are a second floor apartment and it can get warm up here.  This summer it is working great.

Today our issues are not any that we can ask Alonso to fix.  The TV remote will not change channels.  When we replaced the batteries (it doesn't hurt to try!), the TV would not even come on.  So today we drove to the xfinity store and got a new remote.  We were told, and this is always scary, that "It is very easy to reprogram!" Well, you can't reprogram it without the TV screen on and the TV screen won't come on unless the remote is working.  Jim spent a lot of time trying to communicate with xfinity via chat and then text and finally we settled on a technician coming out tomorrow to take care of this issue.  I said at one point, "Tell them that we are 75 and this is just too hard."  I don't know what Jim told them and I don't know what they will charge us but we hope to have TV in our living room again tomorrow evening. 

We have a second TV in the bedroom which we never use but we did watch some baseball on it last night.  It was not as comfortable and it just isn't our usual routine.  We are spoiled!

Jim is very patient with repairs and telephone technicians.  But today there is also his watch battery that has to be replaced.  He walked all over the Princeton Shopping Center today looking for the jewelry store he remembered using two years ago for this purpose but couldn't find it.  Is it closed?  Has it moved?  Is his memory failing him?  We know just where we would go for such a purpose in South Bend and are reminded once again that we are still newcomers in this community. 

-----------------a few hours later:  We were asked to call Comcast and a very patient gentleman worked Jim through finding a power button (well hidden) on our TV and then setting up the remote.   Success!   The Red Sox are playing the Blue Jays in our living room.   And the technician appointment for tomorrow is cancelled.  This is success for us and for xfinity thanks to a very calm and competent phone representative.  I wish we had his name.  He and Jim both deserve credit!