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Well, he did it again! Murphy came unannounced last Saturday, our busiest day ever. He just showed up…no phone calls…no warning… Isn’t that rude!?!

He decided that our air conditioner needed to go out on one of the hottest Saturdays of the year. I have a bone to pick with him because he did the same thing last year! Last year he decided that not one, but two of our units could use some expensive repairs last summer. He even kicked us out of our own bedrooms and we had to sleep in the guest room in the basement because it was so hot upstairs. He was an unrelenting guest. I was sure glad we finally got rid of him.

But he returned…again. We have three separate air conditioning units for each level in our home. I guess he thought he’d finish the job this time. After what happened last summer…we were ready!

We woke up early Saturday morning to 80 degree temperature on the main floor in our home. I double checked to make sure someone hadn’t turned the air off. It was on, but it was not working. I told my husband and he went out to check the unit. Sure enough it was the EXACT same problem we had last summer. The capacitor had gone out.

What Murphy didn’t know is that we learned A LOT from last summer. Last year, my husband watched the tech do the repair, not once, but twice. He realized it is not a difficult part to fix. He also asked questions about it as the tech worked on it. Basically, he got Air Conditioning Repair 101 by being a student. We also discovered that our neighbor (an engineering genius) had the same problem, but he fixed it himself. He had a friend who was able to get him the part at cost.

As we left for our daughter’s all-day softball tournament, my hubby called our neighbor. Our neighbor then called his friend. Because we were in the middle of the tournament our wonderful neighbor went to our house and took the part from the unit and got the new part for us. My husband came home and installed it. By the time I got home at 3PM, everything was fixed!

The total cost…$18! We are guessing we saved over $100+ dollars for not having to call someone to come out and fix it. AND we didn’t have to suffer all weekend in the heat while waiting for a repairman to come on Monday.

We kicked Murphy to the curb…big time!!

Anna