Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Coincidence?

Happens all the time, right? Several unrelated things occur, almost at the same time, and there’s some kind of similarity but no common cause.

There’s nothing sinister about that, is there? Of course not.

Unless you know something about the incidents that MAY BE related, or a common cause. YOU KNOW what I mean.

Take our good friend and golfing buddy Ruth, for example. She’s the lady who makes the fantastic wedding cakes.

Well, a few weeks ago her riding golf cart began acting up. Oh, it wasn’t a consistent problem. No, this was much more subtle. Sometimes it would work normally, but sometimes it wouldn’t accelerate properly. Sometimes it would hesitate or stutter. Sometimes it wouldn’t move at all.

The repair man diagnosed a bad accelerator and replaced it. That didn’t help. They checked all the battery and electrical connections to no avail. The final step was to replace all the batteries. That is EXPENSIVE. But it did SEEM to solve the problem... for NOW.

Then her clothes washer and dryer quit. Almost simultaneously. Yes, they were getting old, but don’t you think it’s a bit unusual for them to BOTH “go for a Burton” (that’s a British term I learned from RobotJam—pretty expressive, I thought) at the same time? She’s having to replace them.

And THEN she lost her internet connection. She, like me, is on cable and has broadband internet through a cable modem. She contacted the cable company. After trying several obvious things (“Is your cable modem plugged in and turned on? Are your network cables connected?”) they determined that she had a bad “splitter” in her cable system at her house, and told her to buy a new one. (A new splitter; not a new house.)

Coincidence?

Or could it be another “C” word? One that starts with “con” and ends with “piracy?” And has an “s” in between?

YOU KNOW!

(So be warned. “It” may be starting again.)

10 comments:

Miss Cellania said...

Yes, a conspiracy. By a group that once was called "kinks", then during WWII, they became known as "gremlins", then later on, "bugs", and still more recently, "viruses and worms". Whatever they are, they've got itin for us!

Anonymous said...

I am afraid the "you know what" has now infiltrated my workplace. If you don't know, I work as an ophthalmic technician. In our office, we have a lot of expensive diagnostic equipment. Can you see where this is going? We have a camera that is used for retinal photography, and is vital to diagnosing many medical conditions. On Monday (the day the retinal specialist is in the office) the thing stops working. On Tuesday, with the cataract surgeon in attendance, a machine that takes and records all the measurements needed prior to cataract surgery...stops working! And today, we take some photos of a patient (on a regular digital camera) that are necessary to get insurance authorization for surgery. Normally we then download the pics onto a laptop and pirint them out. Well, the patient is anxious to have the surgery, so we attempt to print the pictures immediately. And can you guess? I wouldn't work.

So, all I want to know is... what's gonna happen tomorrow?

Unknown said...

So... you infected her, huh?

Duke_of_Earle said...

r.e.

No one is safe... Not even YOU!

Faith Bicknell said...

RYC: Actually, my name came from a paperpack novel published in the 60s that dealt with the courting of Mary and Joseph. The word 'faith' was used in one part of it in such a way that my mother fell in love with the meaning. She always believed I was meant to be special ('course every parent believes this about their children.) and the meaning in the book explained faith in a dif manner.

RYQ: Heaven's Conspiracy.

kenju said...

I am holding up 2 fingers in the shape of a cross, John, do you see it? Stay away from here!

robotjam said...

What I find annoying Duke is not the fact the thing goes wrong, thats inevitable. What annoys me is electrical goods always go wrong AFTER the warranty has just run out.

Last time though I fought back and did something really naughty. I got cold called by someone selling appliance insurance for $10 a month.
I actually asked the cold caller if "after 2 weeks I could call them out to fix 2 things which may have broken and then cancel my policy". So I insured 2 appliances that had stopped working. I then waited a week got them out to repair them at a cost of £150 and then cancelled my policy. They even threw in $20 of energy saving light bulbs into the mix.

So basically they paid me $10 to fix my stuff, oppps :0

Anonymous said...

Opportunity Call you are right, I'm not kidding he phoned litterally 20 minutes after both the element packed up on my just out of warranty cooker and also the motor on my just out of warranty washing machine.

Anonymous said...

I've put garlic all around the house.

No one is safe - remember last year when my appliances were talking to your appliances and then your outside tap decided to get into the fray of things and started causing havoc? No one is safe.

Nankin said...

None of these remedies did any good at my house. My 10 month old freezer quit last Friday. BMy the time we discovered the problem, it was too late to save anything. I had a couple of those frozen bread dough loaves and they exploded out of the bags. Yuck!