I come home to discover that my stove isn't working...again. It hadn't been working when I first moved in (a month ago now) either, but when I called them the first time they came right up and fixed it.
However, it was now Friday at 6 PM, meaning my apartment's office was closed.
So I google "how to light a stove's pilot light". A few articles later I'm standing at my stove, which is now minus a top, trying to figure out where you light the damn thing, but I can't seem to find anything. Back to google, and I discover that some gas stoves apparently have lighting mechanisms powered by electricity? Figuring that's what I probably have, and not wanting to set flame to anything, I decide to call my office number anyway and see if anyone is there.
The prompt that comes up tells me that if I have a "maintenance emergency" to dial 6....and I pause. It's not TECHNICALLY an emergency, though I don't have a microwave and eating out isn't an option since I just spent all my money on cooking supplies and my apartment's deposit. Not being able to eat could be an emergency...right? So I take a deep breath and dial 6, hoping that whoever answers will take mercy on me.
The fellow that answered sounded nice enough. I told him my situation, and he told me that he was in another city and would be back my way in about an hour. Great!
I decide that in the mean time I'll just make toast. So I pop a couple pieces of bread into the toaster and wait....and wait. Until I finally peer in and see that those little squiggly red lines (wow, I'm a master at appliances aren't I?) haven't lit up inside the toaster.
Then it clicks in my head: toaster isn't working, stove isn't lighting....it must be a breaker problem! (I should note that my lights and computer were on, so it wasn't just a general electric problem)
So I go and open the box, reset the switch. Everything makes a loud POP and I excitedly run back into the kitchen to see if it's fixed.
But alas, it's not.
An hour later, I give the guy a call back.
"Oh and just so you know, I think I've narrowed it down to be an electrical problem in the kitchen. My toaster doesn't work either. I flipped the switch in the box for the kitchen but it didn't help."
He tells me, with a chuckle, "it CAN'T be an electrical problem, it's a GAS stove so it doesn't USE electricity"
...?
But I figure, dude knows more than me, so maybe the toaster and the stove are just separate problems that happened at the same time.
So he comes up to the apartment. He fiddles around with the stove for a minute, pokes at things, then turns to me and says
"This is an electric problem"
o rly?
"I'm going to flip the switch in the box"
And I say "Oh I tried that and it just popped really loud."
But he cuts me off mid-sentence and says "it's this box right here, next to your door?" he was talking really, REALLY slowly now, "if you FLIP one of the SWITCHES it'll turn the electricity OFF, then you can switch it back ON"
And I say "Oh, ok"
So he flips it and...guess what? It pops, and does nothing.
Now he tells me "well there's nothing I can do until Monday, probably some bad wiring in here."
...and as he's walking back to the kitchen, he happens to notice my darling little siamabby curled up in a ball, asleep on my armchair...
And he says...
"Oh! Is this a siamese? I used to have one of these!" and proceeds to pick her up and shake her around, all the while petting her so hard that her head was bouncing around like one of those dolls on the dash board.
What the hell?
He said he would be back on Monday, bright and early, but I'm thinking about calling the office before he comes back and requesting another maintenance guy.
tl;dr don't touch my cat!