They Come in Threes

By Darcy Thiel

I’m sure you have heard it said that bad things come in threes. I’ve heard it with regards to people dying, getting sick, things breaking. You know, just about anything applies.

I’m here to disagree. Sometimes, the universe just doesn’t add correctly. I prefer to think that rather than wonder if I’m just starting another set of three. Wouldn’t you?

Let’s see. Last week, my hot tub stopped working. I usually close it in the winter, but this year I kept it open. It was warm out until the last week in December so I just kept using it. Now it doesn’t make sense to pay almost two hundred dollars to close it when I will just open it in three months anyway. So I went out to do the weekly chemical check and discovered the water was cold as there was no power going to it. No worries, I know what to do. I flip the outlet/reset switch. That doesn’t work. I go to the basement. The breaker isn’t tripped, but I click it back and forth just to be sure. Nothing.

Luckily, it was not a costly or difficult repair. I was initially panicked because I could see the pipes freezing and exploding. It needs a new breaker in the spring, but for now, the problem appears to be there is a leak around the breaker so water is getting in. Then it freezes and you can’t reset the breaker because it’s frozen inside. So far, so good. It hasn’t frozen again.

Number two was waking up Friday morning to discover the fridge wasn’t working. THAT is not good. I helped my son Colin move all the food as quickly as we could. We have a small freezer in the basement and we were able to fit everything in like a puzzle. For the fridge stuff, we have a small beverage fridge. Colin got everything in there but I truly don’t know how. I opened the door and quickly closed it again. If someone breathed on it, everything would have fallen like dominoes.

Of course this occurred on a day when I had a two-hour meeting, a four-hour class, and another hour and a half meeting. I was trying to find service people in between everything from the car or wherever I was. After several phone calls, I found someone to come out. I figured it had to be cheaper than paying the $580 for an extended warranty. Colin kept in touch by text and said it was fixed. It cost $180 and he moved all the food back to the fridge and freezer.

Phew. Until I got the next text. He said the fridge had stopped working again and he had to move all the food out. AGAIN. Now I’m panicked. It’s Friday afternoon and all the folks I called said they don’t work on weekends. I am out the money now too. Eventually, my friend was able to come out and check. We were relieved to know the fridge was indeed fixed. When you start to put food back in, the temps will go all over the place. I didn’t blame Colin. I would have thought it was broken too. That was one stressful day, but all in all, $180 wasn’t so bad.

Bad luck comes in three’s so the next day my car started having problems. I thought I hit something big in the road because of the jolt and noise the car made, but I could find nothing in the road. The next day, the car did it several times. The hockey parents said it sounded like the transmission. Crap. I prayed I would get us home safely and called the dealership the next morning.

Good news, it wasn’t the transmission. It was the four-wheel drive trying to adjust and it “hops” when doing so. This is due to the flat tire I had a couple of months ago and uneven tread. But of course they find another problem as well. A $140 later, I had my car back. A lot of aggravation and time, but again, not so bad financially. And I got my three things over with in the same week, so I’m good for a while.