Most of the time.. I consider myself to be a fairly practical and calm person.. There are however.. times and occasions that are the exception to the rule.. and one of them occured just a couple of days ago..
I had had a pretty much non-stop day.. the kind my closest friends often teasingly refer to as a "Pallu day" and one that didn't allow me to get my little "horizontal" time and by 10:30 pm I was totally exhausted!
It was an extremely wet and humid evening so I put the airconditioner on 22° and medium speed.. my head on the pillow.. and in less than two shakes of a puppy dog's tail I was fast asleep! About four hours later.. I woke up because I was FREEZING.. picked up the remote to raise the temperature and the whole screen was filled with funny symbols numbers and whatnot!
The bloody remote wouldn't let me raise the temperature.. lower the temperature.. adjust the flaps or the direction of airflow.. and it wouldn't even let me switch the airconditioner OFF! There in my (no longer) sleep befuddled state was me.. desperately pressing every button on the remote to get absolutely NO response to anything.. AND my bedroom was still freezing cold and it was driving me crazy!
Finally after a number of abortive attempts I succumbed and switched off the main switch.. and managed to fall back asleep under the steady and comfortable whirring of the ceiling fan!
First thing in the morning I called the service company people and launched into a litany of the woes of my night and they promised to send a technician to check.. I even went to the extent of asking if the remote was a genuine one or fake.. imagine my face when they later confirmed that it was indeed fake!
The guys came in the afternoon and checked the remote only to find that ALL four of my airconditioner remotes had batteries that were on the brink of dying and in a matter of literally a minute each in their hands.. worked perfectly normally!
These are the times when you feel dumb and sheepish and I was not an exception! I apologized and remunerated them for their efforts generously and was in return given a piece of advice.. ac remote batteries MUST be changed every 3 months or else the battery liquid leaks out.. as it had done in my case!
It set me thinking and made me wonder why we (assuming I'm not the only one) rarely think of the simplest solution to a problem! There was a perfectly ready and comfortable bedroom I could have gone to sleep in (with a properly functioning ac remote) but I didn't take that option.. Probably because my Gujarati baniya genes wouldn't allow me to run two airconditioners all night for just one person!
My learning from this episode has been to stay calm and try to find the simplest solution to the problem and call in the professionals if and when all simple options fail.. I started looking at the worst case scenario thinking maybe the ac was dying and needed to be replaced etc..etc..
Am I usually a "drama queen"? Not really but this just reinforced that I NEED my little siesta or "horizontal time" to be able to function at optimum and take these little niggles of life "in my stride"!
So now the mantra is.. calm down.. take a few deep breaths.. think of a solution.. and most of all.. don't take it personally and remember there is almost always a simple solution.. if we just stop to think of it and look for it!
Just a fun little sharing before the weekend starts.. so thank you as always for reading!
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