Trivialities

As a result of that curious malice inanimate objects, especially those that one owns, manifest en masse occasionally, yesterday evening my life was thrown into disarray (well, more than the usual amount) by the following: the bedroom light fitting - not simply the bulb, which had already shone its last - decided it's useful life was over by cracking up in my wife's hands; the entire air-conditioning system in the apartment went on strike, resolutely showing little red lights on the various units in place of the little green lights we're accustomed to; and, to put the tin hat on it, my credit card declared itself expired to a hungry creditor, to whom I owed the princely sum of $2.05, when it wasn't, or at least wasn't to my uncertain knowledge.

I'd like to be able to say I took all this in my stride, showing the kind of grace under pressure that Wellington himself (he of the boots) might have managed in the middle of one of his stickier encounters - but I didn't. I muttered, growled, fumed and made of myself a nuisance of fairly large proportions to the immediate neighbourhood. Fortunately two extraordinarily helpful chaps from the firm we call to service the air-conditioning put the first two problems right in record time, and with an amazing lack of any mess, and a phone call to a patient lady whom I think my credit card company calls a service operator, or something of that ilk, enabled me to grasp enough of the complexities of the world of high finance to understand how to pay my debt and forestall the arrival of the bailiffs. And all was (reasonably) well again.

Which leads me to a thought: aren't there a lot of incredibly able, pleasant and helpful folk around and aren't we lucky to have them?

Mind you, I still can't get the website of the company to which I owe the 2 bucks to accept the correct details of my credit card, so my sunny mood of goodwill to all is now officially over. Grrrrgh.