PART 1: Ar-nold Never Had It This Bad…………….
Our generator, the life-blood of our vessel, is running rough. It’s the big tit our batteries suck on to power all of our trouble-prone equipment. Without it, we’re celibate and that ain’t good. To preserve our manhood, we decided to bring out the big guns and hired a marine mechanic to inspect it, a day we will rue for many sunrises.
When “Chris the mechanic” showed up that Friday three hours late holding a bedroll we knew we were in for it at the tune of $85/hr. (Putting the word “marine” in front of anything effectively doubles the rate.) Plus we’d hired “Jimmy the mechanic”. Who was this guy?
“Jimmy’s mom died and he took off. No telling when he’ll be back. I got your message off the shop phone. You want me to get started?”
“Yeah, sure” we said. “Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Absolutely. I’m his chief mechanic.”
A few hundred dollars later with the sucker torn wide open he emerged w/the generator head and announced, “I just need to go back to the shop and check the injectors. I could get it finished tomorrow if I had new gaskets, but they have to be ordered from Miami, so it’ll be the middle of next week”.
“No problem” I countered. “I’ve got friends heading down here today. I’ll have the gaskets here by 6:00 p.m.”
That threw him. After clearing his throat he said,
“OK. I’ll get back to you.” He departed and left all his tools onboard. We took that as a positive sign.
Friday, 7:00 p.m. - “Chris. The gaskets are here. Let me know what time you’ll be out tomorrow. By the way, you left your bedroll.”
Saturday, 10:00 a.m. - “Hey Chris. Are you on your way out? Call me back.”
Noon - “Yo Chris, you’re coming out, right?”
3:00 p.m. - “Just call us, OK?”
Sunday - Why bother?
Monday 10:00 a.m. - “Chris, you alive?”
2:00 p.m. - Chris calls back:
1. “I got all your messages.”
2. “Jimmy locked the shop and took off with the keys.”
3. “I sent the injectors to another shop.”
4. “They don’t work weekends.”
5. “They haven’t looked at them. Somebody took the tester.”
6. “The owner promised me they’ll be ready tomorrow by 9:00"
7. “I’ll get back to you.”
Tuesday - Nothing.
Wednesday -Ditto.
(Stay Tuned)
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gasket,smashket, just take a hammer to it !
ReplyDeleteI don't know where I got the idea you were hitting the high seas to be footloose & fancy free.
ReplyDeleteIf memory serves, I vented once or twice to you (ok, so it was 22 times) about the nightmarish "work" done by my first rehab crew at Leeland, but I do believe you're trying to displace me in this most notorious of un-winning sweepstakes called "the help"...