air conditioners and license plates

Last night I had a party at my house hosted for the high school students from New Life. It was a lot of fun and the first time that most of them had been to my house. I have to do that more often. Anyway, while they were there, some were outside playing the best game ever, cornhole, and some were in the livingroom playing the best game ever, twister, and some were in the dining room playing the best game ever, eating, and some were in the other livingroom playing the best game ever, wii.

While those who were playing wii and eating were in the same, somewhat large room addition on my house it was ever more apparent that there was no air conditioning in that room. When it was built, they put in baseboard heaters and no air conditioning vents. Kind of odd. Well as guys and girls played wii for almost 2 hours it began to get a little, shall we say, musty in the room. Wii had fans, but that was not sufficient.

Around 9pm when everyone had left and we put the kids in the tub for a quick cleaning of red Faygo pop lips and cheeto fingers, I decided that I was going to break down and go buy an air conditioner to put in the window in that room. I helped wash and dry the kiddos and off I went to Wally World to get the best deal on an air conditioner. I got one and I got back home around 10. I proceeded to read the directions....yes really, and put it all together to put in the window. My lovely wife told me that I should have 2 people, one on either side of it so it wouldn't fall. I pretty much had it all assembled and all but sealed into the window so I thought I would be fine. As I was putting it in, there are some funky little accordion looking things on either side of the unit that help insulate it from the elements and make it fit the window properly. One side got stuck so I had to lift the window in order to readjust it. Well I found out my wife was right and that only one, unfocussed finger cannot hold a 60-70 lb air conditioner.

Yep, it fell out of the window about 3 feet down to its fate in mulch and mud. My flesh told me to let out a few choice words, but I refrained. I went outside and picked it up and saw that it was bent up a bit and had some mud on it. "Still workable" I assumed so I put it back in the window with my wifes help of course. I got it in there perfectly and plugged it in and turned it on with the credit card sized remote and UREKA!! it worked.....well, kind of. It made a horrible sound like the fan was scraping some sort of animal and was causing it severe pain. Maybe it wasn't that bad, but to me I had just wasted $137 on something I broke. So what was my initial reaction. I was pretty angry with myself and said to Tammy, "What am I going to do, I can't lie about it and get a new one." But then that other part of me took over for a moment as it does with all of us and it said, "just take it back, that little fall should not have broken it. It's Wal Mart, they aren't going to miss a little cheap air conditioner."

So I boxed it up as neatly and perfectly as possible and put it in the car and went back at 11pm to Wally World. As I was riding in the car still wanting to get that moment back in the window before it fell, I was flipping stations on the radio and got to one of those kind of cheezy (don't get offended) Christian Easy Listening, Adult Contemporary stations and I kind of left it there--we all need our fix of Avalon every now and then--not really--but I left it there and the song was singing about how I have given Jesus my heart and how He is holy and stuff like that and I knew I had to go to WM and tell them I dropped it and ask for some grace. That sounds very spiritual but if I were to say it in layman's terms, I would have to say that God pretty much spanked the whole "it makes a funny sound, give me a new one" thought out of the water. So, not very spiritual, but that is what happened. So I was trying to figure out my story and how I would phrase it. I got there and put it in a cart--note I had lifted this thing maybe 10 times since buying it and by now it felt more like 200 lbs at 11pm. I wheeled it up to the door and a very nice lady with only a few teeth who worked at WM started yelling something to me when I was about 20 feet away from the door and I couln't understand a word of it. I got closer and she was telling me that returns closed at 10 and that I had to come back tomorrow. So I cart it back to the car, get some gas in the van and go home. I put it on the table and decided to tackle the problem on my own. I got a screwdriver and took the outer shell off and found that the fan was scraping a little plastic piece. I put the plastic piece where it belonged and put the shell on and put it back in the window--with Tammy's help. I plugged it in turned it on and guess what happened. IT WORKED :) NO SOUNDS:)

At around 12:30 we had cool air and I had a shower. I asked Tammy a question when all was said and done. I asked, "What would you have thought if I went and lied to WM about the AC?"
Her answer is between me and her. But I guess there is a life lesson in all of that. I don't think I am the only one to get too much change or forgot to put something on the checkout belt that was under the cart. The question is, what do I do with it?

I will get to license plates later. Not enough time now.