Ask Aunt Foley

Dear Aunt Foley:  We had a man come to work in our house recently and my siblings and I got locked in a room.  Why should we get locked away?  It’s our house.  - Downunder Daisy

That is one of the most aggravating decisions parents make.  They love us, they are proud of us, when we are walking with them they love to show us off to passerby’s, but when a stranger comes in the house to do work suddenly we are Anne Frank.  

We are trapped in the room while a human with all sorts of interesting smells walks through our house and the potential for wonderful scratches, rubs, and dare we say treats are lost.  And for what reason?

Because suddenly we have become an embarrassment to our parents, who have become convinced that we might attack the man for being in our house?  Does the fact that a strange man comes into the house to work on the plumbing or something electrical turn us into ferocious beasts?  Or are our parents afraid that we will (heaven forbid) get in the way?

Do they ever consider what a joy seeing us might be to these hard working laborers going from house to house with only frustrated humans with a broken appliance in their past and a big bill in their future to talk to?  We would not get in their way, we would make their day.  The joy we bring humans could even lead to a break on their bill.  

Plus no one knows the stuff that needs to be repaired in a house like we do.   We are home all the time, we are low to the ground, like many of the appliances, we have great noses and ears and can tell by sound and smell what is wrong with anything in the house.  By tail wags, eye movement, ear wiggling, and use of paws we could communicate to the repairman and save them time and the family money.

But no our shortsighted parents keep us locked up in a room.  The dog deprived repairman becomes grumpy because he would love to see us, he works slower, and because he is wondering what we look like, he becomes careless, not fixing the appliance properly, and leaves the house sad, while our parents are sad about the big bill, and when we are let out we run out of the room barking trying to bring the man back so he can see us and repair what he missed but he’s gone.

And when he returns a week later to fix what he missed we will once again be locked in the room and the vicious circle will start again.

Everything's Broken, No One Speaks English and My Stacey's Are Soaking Wet by River Song

I don’t know how humans are supposed to spend their Fourth of Julys.  It was only my second one.  But I don’t think they were meant to go through the weekend celebrating the nation’s birthday (and Foley’s) wet, hot, tired and frustrated.

The first cause of frustration, and the main cause of the heat, was a central air conditioner that did not like blowing cold air.  Each day, at the hottest point of the afternoon, the air conditioner would stop blowing cold air and start blowing hot air until the sun began to go down, when it would start blowing cold air again.

Daddy called a plumbing company and two days later a nice smelling Asian American man arrived.  When our Grampy was alive Daddy was critical of him because he never wanted a home health aide with an accent because Grampy said he could not understand them.  Daddy felt this was foolish.  But when they got outside, and the Asian American man began asking Daddy about the central air unit, and Daddy didn’t understand what he was saying, Daddy just kept saying Uh-Huh because he didn’t want to appear racist.

About three days later the air conditioner began to blow warm air again.  Daddy called the air conditioner people and they sent the little nice smelling Asian American man back.  Mommy told the man that the compressor keeps overheating and shutting off.  The man told Mommy that is not what Daddy said. Mommy began to speak and he said:  “I no talk to you.  Bring your husband here.”

Now if you know my Mommy she does not like being dismissed by anyone.  She went to the bathroom and told Daddy the air conditioning man was there and needed to speak to him.  Daddy hurried out and the air conditioning man said something and Daddy said “Uh-huh.”  Daddy knew Mommy would not be happy if she had to pay more money and the system still didn’t work so he carefully described what the problem was and he was able to work out an understanding with the man   The repairman cleaned the central air, checked all sorts of gadgets, and, after $400.00 he said the system was now fixed.

It worked for a week.  Then, on July 3, it started blowing warm air again.  Daddy turned it off until the sun went down.  Mommy and Daddy had a loud discussion.  Mommy wanted to hire a new company to look at it, Daddy said they would have to start from scratch with a new company, although we think he liked the Asian gentleman, and if the new guy didn’t fix the air conditioner it would be do to a lack of Daddy’s intellectual skills and not his verbal skills.

They decided that to keep the air conditioner from overheating they would shut it off a few hours a day.  Since then it has only blown warm air once, and it was on a day they forgot to turn it down.  So Daddy hasn’t had any more awkward conversations with angry men.

Then on the Fourth of July the rain came.  Another thing Daddy likes to do besides pretending her can understand people doing important work on his house with accents is to reduce his carbon footprint, which I think is silly since he has uncommonly small feet for a grown man, so Daddy has a rain barrel.  It has a faucet about six inches high, and then another one near the bottom.  It doesn’t create enough water pressure to use a hose so you have to fill a watering can, but you can’t do it from the bottom spigot and when the water gets below the upper spigot you can’t use the barrell so Daddy put it on blocks and strapped a bungee cord around it attached to a trellis.

First the gutters began to come loose from the barrel.  Daddy had to cut them and sliced up his hands when he did..  After getting his hands tended to he checked on the barrell and found out the weight of the water was knocking it off the blocks and pulling down the trellis. He went back out in the pouring rain and wrestled the barrell off the blocks.  When he came in he was soaked to the bone. He stripped down and threw his pants in the wash.  In the pants pocket was his I Phone and when he realized it was there it was drowned.

Daddy went online and did all the silly things you are supposed to do, put it in alcohol, put in the rice.  It came on just long enough for him to say goodbye and then was gone forever.  Luckily his plan called for him to get an upgrade and Foley had hidden most of his information in one of her clouds.  Mommy got a new phone too, and nothing brings tension and drama to a house like new electronics.  

I hope that the drama is over for the summer, as long as the air conditioning holds out, and the water barrel doesn’t tip over and Daddy doesn’t wash his phone.

Oh it’s going to be a long summer