Just call me MacGyver
Josh left for a weekend in New York this evening and I had to stay home in Chicago because I am pregnant and my OB said she wouldn't feel comfortable with me traveling at 30 weeks in a high-risk pregnancy.
I never get to do anything (says the woman who went to France the last time she was pregnant and to New York, Vegas, San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Dubai, the Maldives and Florida in the last year). Boo hoo. I also had to cancel a trip to Florida at the end of the month because of this pesky pregnancy status. I never have any fun. (I can feel all your eyes rolling collectively to the backs of your heads.)
Technically, Josh is going to do some IT work for a friend's company. But this friend throws awesome parties for a living so I find it hard to believe when he tells me "we'll be working the whole weekend." Sure, sure. Working at Buddha Bar and Marquee til 3 a.m. is more like it.
He'll probably be rolling in around 5:30 a.m. just as I am rolling out of bed with the early-rising Jack. Except he'll have a few beers in him before he passes out and I'll just feel like passing out from exhaustion.
His leaving actually inspired the MacGyver in me because it meant I needed to figure out why the alarm system wasn't working for the last two weeks. Well, I actually know why it wasn't working -- we removed a sensor during the remodeling and that caused the whole system to freak out and randomly blink and beep at us until we broke down and paid the $145-per-hour fee to have some dude come out, put on those weird little shoe covers and hit the same buttons we could have hit ourselves.
I also may or may not have dropped the remote sensor on my key chain and watched as the little buttons flew all over the kitchen when it split open upon impact. Those little remotes are not cheap and when I saw what happened after dropping it a mere three feet, I might have cried a little. I also never did find one of the teeny blue buttons. I suspect Emmie ate it. Or it fell underneath the dishwasher where it will never be seen again. Either way, it's dead to me.
Not wanting anyone to break in and kill me while Josh is gone, or at least not break in and kill me without the alarm blaring, I decided to call and schedule a service appointment. Except the guy told me I would have to pay the $145 per hour, despite the fact we just signed up for a new service plan. Apparently they don't cover fixing the remote when you drop it and lose one of the keys. Which is bullshit. It also doesn't cover replacing a door sensor because you installed a whole new door. Again, bullshit.
The helpful dude on the phone told me he was all for saving me money, so he would walk me through the process of attempting to fix both things. The panel was easily fixed -- as I predicted, we only needed to push a few extra buttons -- and voila, a working alarm.
The remote involved a little more intricacy. The dude was trying to explain how the keys should be arranged, but he was talking about mirror images and how it would look if it was face-up, but it was really face-down so I should just mirror what he was saying and then I freaked out and felt like I was taking the ACT again and I suck at spatial relationships and I might have dropped the F-bomb on him under my breath and then threw the remote across the room.
But then I put on my big-girl pants and took charge of the remote and drew a little chart on a piece of scrap paper and successfully arranged the keys. They didn't work. I might have thrown it again.
The dude told me to just give it up already and I said I didn't need the service call ANYWAY and then I hung up. Because I am a mother, and I know everything, I decided maybe he told me the wrong configuration for the buttons. So I pried the remote open with a butter knife and rearranged them. AND IT WORKED!
How you like them remote buttons dude? I did it all by myself and didn't even need you or your stupid mirror-image remote configurating advice.
So in case anyone is thinking about coming to kill me this weekend, I fixed the alarm and you totally won't be able to do it in secret. I have thwarted you.
I never get to do anything (says the woman who went to France the last time she was pregnant and to New York, Vegas, San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Dubai, the Maldives and Florida in the last year). Boo hoo. I also had to cancel a trip to Florida at the end of the month because of this pesky pregnancy status. I never have any fun. (I can feel all your eyes rolling collectively to the backs of your heads.)
Technically, Josh is going to do some IT work for a friend's company. But this friend throws awesome parties for a living so I find it hard to believe when he tells me "we'll be working the whole weekend." Sure, sure. Working at Buddha Bar and Marquee til 3 a.m. is more like it.
He'll probably be rolling in around 5:30 a.m. just as I am rolling out of bed with the early-rising Jack. Except he'll have a few beers in him before he passes out and I'll just feel like passing out from exhaustion.
His leaving actually inspired the MacGyver in me because it meant I needed to figure out why the alarm system wasn't working for the last two weeks. Well, I actually know why it wasn't working -- we removed a sensor during the remodeling and that caused the whole system to freak out and randomly blink and beep at us until we broke down and paid the $145-per-hour fee to have some dude come out, put on those weird little shoe covers and hit the same buttons we could have hit ourselves.
I also may or may not have dropped the remote sensor on my key chain and watched as the little buttons flew all over the kitchen when it split open upon impact. Those little remotes are not cheap and when I saw what happened after dropping it a mere three feet, I might have cried a little. I also never did find one of the teeny blue buttons. I suspect Emmie ate it. Or it fell underneath the dishwasher where it will never be seen again. Either way, it's dead to me.
Not wanting anyone to break in and kill me while Josh is gone, or at least not break in and kill me without the alarm blaring, I decided to call and schedule a service appointment. Except the guy told me I would have to pay the $145 per hour, despite the fact we just signed up for a new service plan. Apparently they don't cover fixing the remote when you drop it and lose one of the keys. Which is bullshit. It also doesn't cover replacing a door sensor because you installed a whole new door. Again, bullshit.
The helpful dude on the phone told me he was all for saving me money, so he would walk me through the process of attempting to fix both things. The panel was easily fixed -- as I predicted, we only needed to push a few extra buttons -- and voila, a working alarm.
The remote involved a little more intricacy. The dude was trying to explain how the keys should be arranged, but he was talking about mirror images and how it would look if it was face-up, but it was really face-down so I should just mirror what he was saying and then I freaked out and felt like I was taking the ACT again and I suck at spatial relationships and I might have dropped the F-bomb on him under my breath and then threw the remote across the room.
But then I put on my big-girl pants and took charge of the remote and drew a little chart on a piece of scrap paper and successfully arranged the keys. They didn't work. I might have thrown it again.
The dude told me to just give it up already and I said I didn't need the service call ANYWAY and then I hung up. Because I am a mother, and I know everything, I decided maybe he told me the wrong configuration for the buttons. So I pried the remote open with a butter knife and rearranged them. AND IT WORKED!
How you like them remote buttons dude? I did it all by myself and didn't even need you or your stupid mirror-image remote configurating advice.
So in case anyone is thinking about coming to kill me this weekend, I fixed the alarm and you totally won't be able to do it in secret. I have thwarted you.
Labels: It's all about me, Josh, Pregnancy
posted by Amy at
7:35 PM
6 Comments:
That's a huge WIN for mommies everywhere!
Good for you! You know all those Customer Service people just read off of a script anyways. They don't really know how to fix anything any more than we all do.
Woo hoo! Way to go on MacGyvering that remote and door sensor!
Way to go MacGyver!
Holy shit that was funny. Glad you fixed it.
Nice one!
What a great writer you are!! Love it!
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