Part two of the water heater wars.
It was time to make a call to the warranty company employed by GE, or maybe it was Home Depot. I was now driving back towards downtown and my office. I had chosen the route of I430, past Maumelle, to I-40 East.
Crossing the river bridge I looked to the left and saw people biking and walking across Two Rivers Bridge, to the right I saw the Big Dam Bridge. In President Clinton’s old hometown we were apparently taking his “Bridge to the 21st Century,” literally.
I dialed the warranty number and after speaking to a computer that at last realized it couldn’t help me, I was put on hold for what would hopefully be flesh and blood. In the meantime I was becoming stressed and had mistakenly taken the Maumelle Exit, not sure why, just driving at that point. At last a young woman came on the line and asked me for my water heater serial, and also the model number. I pulled into the parking lot of The Summit Church, just across from Wild River Country, also known as Walmart in a bathing suit.
I gave her the numbers and also told her the heater was in my attic, over the garage.
She asked what the problem was.
“The pilot won’t light,” I told her.
“You tried lighting it and it won’t light,” she asked.
“Correct,” I said, restraining myself from sarcasm as I saw her as my only hope to ever have another hot shower.
“Well, I see that you are indeed still under warranty so I’m going to need you to get to the water heater so I can walk you through the troubleshooting steps.”
(More restraint) “I’m sorry, what?”
“You need to be where you can do some things so we can see what the problem is.”
At that point it was about 1:00 in the afternoon. “Well, it is about 125 degrees in my attic. How long will this take?”
“Sir, it will take a few minutes. If you’d like to call back when it’s cooler.”
“I can’t wait until Thanksgiving. And I’m not even at home right now so I will have to do this later. But let me ask you this. This, troubleshooting, you want me to perform, does it require anything?”
“Sir?”
“Like do I need any tools?”
“Yes sir, you will need a wrench.”
(Restraint now lost forever)
“What kind of wrench?”
“Sir?”
“Well if you are the troubleshooter expert then you must know there are different types of wrenches. Do you want it to be a socket wrench, or maybe a ratchet wrench? Or perhaps you want it to be a crescent wrench, those are always a good all around choice.”
(Her restraint now gone as well)
“A crescent wrench would be just perfect, get the crescent wrench……sir.”
In some sick sort of way, that I still find myself in sometimes, I was beginning to enjoy this and so I had to ask her one last question.
“So when I get up there in my sauna attic with my crescent wrench, what is it exactly you’d like me to do with it?”
A long pause and then,
“Why sir, I thought you’d never ask.”
With that we both cracked up. And, as laughter so often will, a connection was made and she really began trying to help me with the problem, which she never was able to do, but it wasn’t her fault and at least she had a sense of humor, which goes a long way with me.
A few days later, after paying a plumber $95 to come to my house and re-light my pilot, hot water again flowed.