The Changer
has completely lost her mind, you’re thinking. Most likely.
Here’s the way I see it, though: you people are silly, bored, or intrigued
enough to read my thoughts every week, so it’s my obligation to bring to
light any social injustice that I might encounter.
In order
for you to completely understand the Astroturf problem our society is facing,
let me first explain a bit about some similar situations that led to my
discovery of the Astroturf phenomenon. First, let’s go back a few
weeks to the night of the “Thanksgiving
Eve” discussion.
I noticed
that afternoon that it was pretty warm in the apartment, so I turned the
air down. It kicked on, and I figured it would be fine in a while.
Several hours later, it was hotter than hell in my apartment, and the A/C
was going full-blast, blowing lukewarm air. So I called the
complex’s answering service and asked for someone on our "crack" maintenance
squad to investigate the cooling problem.
The next
afternoon, there’s a knock on the door. I answer the door to see
a 16-year-old dude with a $29.99 Sears toolbox. He bears a striking
resemblance to the plumber from July (don’t worry, I’ll tell that story
soon enough).
“Sumthin’ wrong with your
air condishner, mam?”
“If it
would blow cold air, it’d be perfect.”
He gave me a puzzled look,
so I led him to the A/C vent and asked him if the air coming out was as
cold as it should be, expecting him to pull some sort of fancy thermometer
out of his Sears toolkit. He used my proven, scientific test of putting
his hand in front of the vent and declaring the air was warm. He
went outside and put some freon in the air conditioner. The air was
almost tepid after his first visit. Three repairs later, it’s finally
working.
Well,
I said I’d tell you about his father, the plumber. It’s mid-July.
I hear someone knocking on the door next door. When they don’t answer,
the pounding moves to my door. As I open the door, I’m greeted by
a stringy-haired, odd-smelling fellow who says to me:
“Ah need
acuplapeecesabred”
“You
need WHAT?”
“Ah need
a couple a’ pieces a wot bred.”
“Well,
sir, all I have is wheat, will that work?”
While
he was contemplating this question, I threw in another, “Can I ask what
you need this for?”
“Well
mam your wodder heater is broken.”
“Yes,
I know…”
“I guess,
if weet’s all ya got.”
I presented him with three
pieces of white bread, and I had hot wodder 12 hours later.
So now
that you have a good handle on two of our four-man crack maintenance squad,
let me get to the real point of today’s article: Astroturf.
It all started the week before I moved into my new apartment. I was
doing a walk-through on the apartment and noticed that the balcony had
some lovely green indoor/outdoor carpeting with a 12-inch hole in the center.
It was peeling up, too. I was assured it would be fixed by the time
I moved in.
About
three weeks after I moved in, I called in my first three maintenance requests:
fix the blinds in the spare bedroom, remedy the refrigerator water-leaking
problem, replace the Astroturf on the balcony. About a week later,
I see a lovely yellow piece of paper (I’m starting a collection) that says
“SERVICE REQUEST” across the top.
The
maintenance genius’s notes were “replaced blinds, saw no water in refrigerator,
ordered new carpeting for patio.” Well, he must have replaced every
set of blinds in the house except the broken ones, cuz they were even worse
now than before I’d called. And the 1” puddle of water in the bottom
of the refrigerator was still there. But rest assured, my new Astroturf
was on order.
Six weeks
later, I open the patio blinds on a Sunday afternoon and notice that some
god-awful bright green Astroturf is on the balcony. Its predecessor
had been very dark. Ok, so it’s a bit gaudy, but they finally fixed
something I requested. So I move on with my life.
A week
later, I look out on the balcony and notice that there are these 4”x3’
raised spots all over the damned Astroturf. Even the spray-painted
plaster elephant can’t smoosh these things back down. I do some investigation
and find out that they haven’t really done much to keep the Astroturf down.
So I
called the lady at the office to complain about it, and she had someone
out within two hours. (It takes a day for the A/C when it’s 100 degrees
out, but they don’t joke about serious matters like Astroturf bubbling).
I come home Wednesday to a service request on my desk that notes they “resealed
carpet don’t walkd on tell Friday”. It looks absolutely no different,
but I’m so impressed with their response time that I just had to share
my experience with you.
