she also serves who only stands and waits...

There are only a few things that can get me down and they seem to happen with distressing regularity. One BIG thing I can't stand is having to wait. I hate to wait. Hate it.

Friday morning I was on my way home from walking and the supermarket when my normally frigid car air conditioner got hot. I mean hot. It went from ice cold to winter time heat in less than a minute. I timed it. I conducted experiments to be sure it was the air conditioner. I have sold cars because their air conditioning broke. I don't like to sweat and I don't like to wait. So July in the mid-Atlantic with no AC is a bad place for me to be.

Back in November I hit a deer and had my car repaired by a very reliable place. Part of the repair work involved the AC and heat. I was given a life time guarantee in that if anything went wrong with the work done by this place during the life of the car (the time I owned it) they would make the repair for free. So, naturally, when my air conditioner went on the fritz I called them. A very nice young man named John told me to bring it in and they would look at it. Of course, this was Friday afternoon so I told him I'd be in first thing Monday morning. So first thing this morning I went to the collision place. I sat and waited for over 90 minutes and when the car was returned to me I was told that the AC compressor was gone. Done. Kaput. And that they didn't do anything to the AC compressor so they couldn't fix it. They couldn't even fix it if I gave them money! The mechanic told me the car was fine to drive but I was not to even turn on the AC...bad things would happen. Belts would break and such.

So I drove home, with the windows open, and called my dealer. Aside from the deer collision I have always taken my car to the dealer for service. A very nice young woman answered the phone and gave me a price to repair the AC in my car. In the meantime husband (after I called and told him what happened) sent me links with regard to a nationwide problem cars of my make, model, and year are having that sound eerily like my problem. And the prices people are getting to repair the car are in the thousands. Well, the nice young woman calls me back and gives me the price $868.48. I make sure we're talking about the same thing and then I ask about this larger documented problem. She explains that she' s new but she will look into it.

The part will take 2 to 5 days to come in and then she will call me (oh...I'll be calling her by Friday if I hear nothing) and then we will set up an appointment.

And here I am. Waiting. I'm waiting for the part. I'm waiting for the nice young woman to find out about the bigger problem. I'm waiting for one daughter to shower so we can go out. I'm waiting for the next heat wave to come.

I watched a report on the news this morning about the death of Randy Pausch. Dr. Pausch told us in his last lecture not to wait...to go out and live our dreams. I believe that we should. I believe that most people in this world are not having enough fun day to day. But when we go about having all kinds of wild fun...who's waiting for the car place to call, for the bread to rise, for the dryer cycle to finish, for everyone to come home to dinner?

That would be me.