Friday, February 16, 2018

Missing: Hipster Refrigerator Fix-It Guy

Oh, Daniel, I hardly knew ye...
Have you seen me?
Last Tuesday, Daniel the hipster fix-it guy, ambled into my home and heart. Backpack slung over his shoulder, he carried with him a sense of confidence rarely found in the appliance trade. I admired his carefully nurtured facial fuzz. I envied his clunky, yet trendy dark-framed glasses (the kind that people used to make fun of you for wearing), while he rambled on about frig gizmos and sensor what's-its and electrical doo-dads. All very technical, all very boring.

But Daniel was far from boring! Bromance was in the air! (Or maybe that was the musty smell coming from the refrigerator.)

After Daniel'd finished his examination, he casually leaned over our kitchen counter and explained how messed up our refrigerator was.

"But...but, Daniel," I said, "the refrigerator shouldn't be freezing food, right? I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but freezing food is the freezer's job."

With a sigh, Daniel explained more technical bla, bla, bla and other excruciating nonsense. I nodded as if I understood him, because I didn't want to appear dumb in Danny's eyes. (By this time, I'd advanced to calling him "Danny," such is the power of male bonding over appliances). 

Bottom line was our refrigerator had been hit by a faulty sensor. Or something close to that.

"Huh," I said. "Does that explain why the light goes off when we open the doors, then turns on again when we shut them? Like in Bizarro World?"

Through narrowed eyes, he glowered at me. Extremely unamused. Somewhere our burgeoning bromance had taken a wrong turn. Finally, he pitched up bony hipster shoulders and broke the agonizing silence. "Can't really tell you what's causing the light thing, man."

His answer didn't exactly instill confidence. But his coolness certainly did.

"I guess we need to put that sensor in," I said.

Danny typed in some numbers on his phone, handed it to me, and said, "$180 bucks. I don't have the part on me so I'll need to order it. But you gotta pay first, dude."

"Okay." I paid. "Um, can I get a receipt?"

"Sorry, dude, everything's electronic now. See you next Tuesday."

"Ah... But--"

Too late. Danny rushed out of the house and out of my life.

For good as it later turned out.

Tuesday rolled around again. No sign of Danny. I called the fix-it, what's-it company.

"Where's Danny?" I asked.

"I wish I knew," said the woman. Hardly an encouraging sign.

"What?"

"Daniel's gone missing. We haven't seen or heard from him in several days."

Stunned, I opened the refrigerator and stared wistfully at all of the frozen food. "Um...is he missing or, you know, missing-missing? Like vanished?"

"Missing-missing. Sorry for the inconvenience."

Immediately the smell of skullduggery stunk up the place. A mystery of epic, Encyclopedia Brown proportions! Clearly, Danny was either dead or had absconded to Mexico with our 180 bucks.

If you'd like to read about an entire bread and breakfast's worth of skullduggery, check into the Dandy Drop Inn! An acclaimed horror thriller to warm up your cold, winter nights: Click here for Dread and Breakfast!





THIS JUST IN! REFRIGERATOR-GUY POST-SCRIPT:

Guess who comes knocking at the door the next day? Yep, Daniel (He's back to being regular "Daniel" now as he never calls, never texts, never shows up...). He mutters some lame excuses about how his phone stopped working, then he got sick. Hmph. He called it a "communication malfunction (kinda like a "wardrobe malfunction," I assume, only with words instead of bared flesh)." I didn't buy it. Too little, too late. I officially declared the bromance OVER!

(I realize this was hardly an exciting endto my tale of suspense and bromance, but sometimes truth is, um, more boring than fiction. Don't judge Dread and Breakfast by the pedestrian conclusion here!)

1 comment:

  1. You gotta watch them there repairfolk. We had one repair our fridge and low and behold the thing just quit the cooling/freezing thing shortly after.
    That romance cooled quit quickly. From no problems to multiple - I'm thinking conspiracy! :)

    ReplyDelete