Hot and Bothered

I am beginning to think my entire summer has been jinxed by the gods of broken crap! If you have been following, you know of my appliance saga - the dishwasher repairman finally arrived this morning to put me out of my dish-pan hand misery. Well that is not exactly true because I always wear rubber gloves to do the dishes. (another thing you faithful readers know about me) The night before we left for vacation, I mowed the lawn and about 2/3's of the way through that job the mower started to make a foreboding clunking sound that told me something was about to go poof and it did. I turned it off and collected a belt of some sort out from under the blades and made a bee-line to my neighbour's place to borrow theirs to finish the task. Thank god for my wonderful neighbours - shout out to Stacey and Chris - always there for us in a pinch! Which leads me to today's fiasco. Ten years ago we had central air conditioning installed - one of those direct vent set-ups that is mounted to the second floor wall and is directed into the bedrooms. The thing does a terrific job of cooling the entire house and has been appreciated over the years when summer days are just too much to bear. As those of you who live in Ontario are aware, this summer has been one of those where the A/C has not really been needed all that much...until last night. Since it is mounted high up on the wall close to the ceiling, it requires a remote control to operate. That remote is always in either one of two places. Has been for 10 years. But not last night. Noooo - that would not co-ordinate very well with the rest of my mechanical melt-downs this summer. The search was on. We looked high and we looked low. It was no where to be found. Perhaps the cat got a hold of it we thought - hence began the search with flashlights under every bed, chair, sofa, table etc. Nothing. Then the search through every drawer, basket, cupboard. Again, nothing. Well, we managed to sleep through the night with the help of ceiling fans. Just pretend we're in the tropics I thought. In the morning, I would call my cleaning lady and see if she knew it's whereabouts - maybe she had placed it somewhere new. Calls were made - nobody could help. I still can't believe the unit has no override switch to turn it on. I called the folks who installed it 10 years ago and they don't carry that brand anymore. However - they were helpful and managed to locate a replacement remote for the low low price of $125. We'll take it! And mount it on a god damn pedestal! It won't be here until the end of the week when the humidity will likely be gone and it won't matter anymore, but at least we will have it when we need it next. Fortunately for Emma and I - we are heading out of town for a couple of days Windermere Resort in Muskoka that will have air conditioning. Doug will have to survive with fans. He is always less bothered by the heat than I am so it seems fair - sort of. So now I am taking bets for what will go next. The washing machine? The dryer? Get your bets in. The odds are in your favour!