Murphy's Law

We all know about Murphy's Law, right? You know the one...if something can go wrong, it will. And I know those of us who are Military Spouses have heard, and experienced, the variation that says that if something can go wrong, it will - while he's deployed (or TDY or in the field, etc.).

Well, I had my own experience with Murphy the past couple of days and have a few words of my own that I'd like to add to it. If something can go wrong, it will - at the worst possible time.

I know I've talked about how nice the weather has been here this winter. Well, we had a cold front come through. Our house has two separate heat pumps - one for the upstairs and one for the downstairs. The one for the upstairs hasn't been working quite right since the end of summer. The unit itself worked, but the thermostat didn't. Whenever I would try to change the temperature it would go blank (that one is a digital thermostat). P. could usually go out and reset the unit and it would start working right, but that was, of course, a pain. But since it had been so warm and I prefer the room I sleep in to be cooler anyway, it wasn't that big a deal.

Last night the temperature got down to the mid 20s. P. and I were sitting here watching TV last night after the kids went to bed, and I kept getting colder, even though I was under my afghan (which is a routine for me on cold nights). So I got up and checked the downstairs thermostat, adjusted it, and the heat never seemed to come on. Even when I pushed the needle up to 80 degrees. It had been working fine the night before (it was down to the mid 30s that night). Uh oh. So we had no heat at all in the house after about 10 or 11 last night. It got pretty cold in here! Thank goodness we have a fireplace or else it would have gotten a LOT colder!



So I get up this morning, get the kids off to school, and get ready to go to work. Our property manager doesn't open until 10. Must be nice - their hours are 10 to 4. But I digress. So I go to work and then call them the minute my clock reads 10:00. I tell her what's going on. She asks me questions, including whether we'd checked the breakers. Yep...checked the breakers. So she says they'll contact their contractor who will call me back to set up an appointment. She calls me back around noon and asks me again if we'd checked the breakers. Answer's still the same...yep, checked the breakers.

I left the hospital at 2:00 to make it home in time for the kids to get off the school bus. As soon as I get home I call the property manager again to see if they'd talked to the contractor. So she gives me the number of the company they use for heating and tells me to call them to check on the work order. So I call them, and they tell me that they haven't received any work order so I have to call the property manager. UGH! I did that already! So I call the property manager again since I can't get anyone out here without a written work order and make it pretty clear to her that I expect to have my heat fixed today! She said she completely understood and would talk to the girl who was supposed to do it earlier in the day to fax it right over. About 15 minutes later I get a call from the heat and a/c company saying that the technician was on his way. Thank goodness!

They get here and it turns out that there was a part in the downstairs unit that had gone bad. It's whatever part makes the motor run, and I can't remember what he called it...lol! The only thing wrong with the upstairs one was the thermostat, which we pretty much already knew. So they had to go to the shop to get a new thermostat (after getting it approved through the property manager again) and came back to change it out. They got that done and were finished by about 5:00. Not bad at all. I was pretty impressed that they came so quickly, but very thankful. So we have heat now. Thank goodness, because it's supposed to be another cold night.