poem

The line from Robert Burns “To A Mouse” written in 1786 still rings true.

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane [you aren’t alone]
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley, [often go awry]
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promised joy.

In the poem, he is apologizing to a mouse for the destruction of its nest while plowing a field. We humans sure can make plans for the future. The mouse, unaware really had no plans. Well, we do all die in the end. Is the mouse blessed because it unaware?

John Steinbeck familiar title “Of Mice and Men” is taken from Burn’s poem. I am not going to get into analyzing Lennie and George . .. Steinbeck’s work or Burns either. Just that point – the best of plans can and does go awry.

Nothing screams oh NO louder than 100 plus degree-days and a DEAD A/C unit. Do mechanical object die? No, they cease to function. They like little mousey are unaware but the impact made this human very aware. The plan was to replace the obviously old unit this winter when they are discounted at the end of the season. Bra ha ha – so much for the plan and enter the schemes go wrong part. Enter the dreaded service call

We were blessed when the technician turned out to be the most understanding and sympathetic of my intolerance for heat. We went from a two-week window for replacement to a three-day one. He hunted old parts down and got the old dinosaur jump-started. He came back and made sure it would come back on. The company moved us up to Monday (today) for installation.

Saturday morning we were awoken by a knock at the door. Standing on the doorstep was to young men with big grins on their faces. Our friendly technician had scheduled himself to install our unit on Saturday they explained. Therefore, because he had such a full service call schedule the company had called them in (bigger $hit eating grins) so here we are! How cool (pun intended) is that!

No mice were harmed in the installation of this unit.