A flashy conversational vignette with a gentle speculative fiction spin.
Dressed in a grey pinstripe that would make a legitimate insurance salesman envious stood a man I did not recognize. I was frankly confused. Here in the rural pop-up burbs, surrounded by pig and dairy farms and cornfields larger than the land area of Cicero Illinois, we get very few out-of-the-blue solicitors. That’s because Fido might not be chained or fenced-in, most children under the age of twelve patrol streets and open lots with pellet guns, and locals have a justified distrust of strangers.
Doesn’t mean we receive strangers all-of-a-suddenly appearing at our front doors with abuse or a 357 magnum. Just means until we figure out why they’re really at our door, strangers’d best move slow-like, and answer questions quickly and honestly.
“Can I help you?” I asked. Seemed to me a civil question. Though my magnum sat atop my bedroom bureau I was feeling my Wheaties, and short of a wolverine, felt up to any stranger at my door in broad daylight.
“I’m here to repair your Amalux 4500.”
“My what?”
“Your Amalux 4500.”
“Don’t know as I own one.”
“Ah but you do. Serial number AMLX45-217762922. A nice unit, fully equipped.”
“Fully equipped, you say?”
“Indeed, all the bells and whistles.” Grey Pinstripe leaned in as if to begin to enter through the wide-open front door.
“Just a minute, here…”
Grey realized his social gaff, gave appearances of retreating to the Beemer parked in my drive. He did, to his credit, press-on. “That’s about as long as it will take. A minute. Maybe two.”
“Am-u-lux?”
“Your refrigerator.”
“Oh. My icebox you say?”
“Indeed. So, if you’d show me to where you keep the little jewel, in the kitchen, I presume, I’ll swap out the defective part and be on my way.”
“I don’t remember calling for any service.”
“Amaluxes are independent of generally too-late interventions.”
“Pardon?”
“They self-diagnose.”
“Nothing wrong with my ice box.”
“Aimee, that’s our trade nickname for that series, disagrees.”
“So?”
“She notified Warranty Central that her backup humidity sensor was at odds with the primary, and with the two arguing, if you will, understand that’s a bit of Repair Agent humor, it was going to escalate electricity consumption.”
“Eh?”
“Make your electric bill higher. Cycling through repeated, unnecessary deicing.”
“Notified warranty whatever?”
“Warranty Central. Placed a call to the corporate monitoring computer. Scheduled shipment of a new sensors through JIT supply and booked my arrival for warranty service.”
“Not paying for any repair. Icebox runs fine.”
“Oh, no charge. It’s all under warranty.”
“Icebox runs fine. Chirrups every time I open the side door, but other than that runs fine.”
“It will start to run up your electric bill. You don’t want that.”
“No. But I’m not paying for something I didn’t ask for.”
“Like I said no charge. Under warranty.”
“Out of the blue. How come someone didn’t call?”
“That ‘chirrup’ as you called it?”
“Yeah?”
“That’s Aimee alerting you to read her display to see…”
“Display?”
“Yes a screen like on your cell phone on the left front door.”
“Never seen it. Shows temperature inside and outside, date, time, day of the week and recognized local and national holidays.”
Guarantee the screen displayed a scheduled service date with options to reschedule. Displays for two days, then just chirruped to let you know there was information to be shared.”
“Oh. Though it was the grandkids messing with me.”
“Nope. Aimee taking care of you.”
“Well. Follow me.”
I took Grey to the kitchen. He demonstrated the display, showed me the ‘alert’ I’d received but never seen. He then popped open the display, fiddled with a long probe, pulled out an electronic-looking thingy, put that in his vest pocket, unwrapped a similar looking but different colored thingy, and with his probe, deposited the thingy in the innerds of my ‘Aimee.’
Gray smiled a slick smile announcing, “All set. Better than new.”
I walked Grey to the front door. “Well, thanks, I guess.”
“One last thing,” Gray said. “I’ll take cash, but I’d rather not, charge card, or Electrodebit.”
“Pardon?”
“Late fine.”
“Late fine?”
“Seems you were three days late replacing the water filter and two days late replacing the odor cleanser filter. It’s in your contract. And Aimee did give you advance notice.”
As my magnum was still in the bedroom, I paid the fifty-two fifty.
© spwilcenski 2023 In spwilcenwrites 3/12/2023
Ramblings 