The Magical Mr Maintenance

Actually, the pretty incompetent Mr Maintenance. It's fittings & appliances 2, Mr Maintenance Nil.

It started a few weeks ago, when Aspidestra asked me if I could possibly change the lightbulb over the office shower unit.

Sure, I said, how hard is it to change a lightbulb?

Well first thing is, it's a really high stud. And the lightbulb is situated right over the slippery shower stall. So anyway, I clambered up onto the windowsill to take a closer look. And dang me if I couldn't figure out how to get at the recessed lightbulb, let alone exchange it for another.

Weeks passed. Then, inspired, I got out the office stepladder & examined an identical light fitting that wasn't situated over a shower stall. Easy.

So back to the shower... except I could not reach the light from the stepladder, nor from the windowsill.

But hey, I'm resourceful. I dragged a large coffee table, and manoeuvred it into the shower stall. Then I got the stepladder & set it on the coffee table. Then I got up there & removed the lightbulb. After that, I had a little trouble getting the new bulb in. And suddenly, the stepladder & the coffee table parted company. But I grabbed the shower stall & saved myself from injury.

But I snapped a crucial piece of the shower door, and now need to identify what make & model it is, and who is the local supplier of little custom made shower door connectors...

And then, this morning, on arrival at work I couldn't help but notice that the coffee machine wasn't working (EMERGENCY!!). Neither was the fridge, nor the dishwasher. But the lights were.

So I located the fuse box, and figured out which switch needed switching... and the fridge, and (THANK GOD!!) the coffee were restored. But not the dishwasher. ALthough Mr Maintenance was able to figure that the problem lies with the dishwasher, not the power socket. And it's got some sort of safety lock (to avoid any nasty dishwashing accidents presumably, yeah, there are a lot of those.) so that I am unable to open it, and most of our dishes & cutlery are in there.

And the emergency dishwasher repair team (slight tangent here, did you know that there is a V L Martin in the phone book? I dunno, maybe it's Vince! OK, not as amusing as a Mr Itchiass I suppose) cannot come until monday. Shock. Horror! Someone (possibly the junior member of the team) will be washing dishes by hand.

Pessimists say that these things come in threes. Let's hope not.

By the way, does anyone have any useful suggestions for disposing of old, broken microwave ovens? Suggestions that do not involve driving them to a landfill? At the moment, they're cluttering up our basement, I'd quite like someone to come & take them away.