A Silver Lining

Well the gas man came this morning to do his inspection and turn on my gas again.  The guy who came to do the work was a real-life incarnation of the handyman caricatures you see in the movies.  The best way I can describe him is gruff.  Scruffy beard, grimy hands, unfriendly, but in the end…all right.

As he came in my apartment I asked him to take his shoes off.  He said, “what?” so I repeated and panto-mimed it.  He said, “No” very sternly.  Hmm….ok.  So then I asked him if his shoes were at least clean, to which he just went right into my kitchen.  Yay Israelis.

So, what was his super important inspection?  I watched the whole thing and I still don’t know, but I suppose I can describe it.  He moved out my stove and disconnected an old, black, plastic gas line.  I was standing in the kitchen watching him, so he just handed me the old piece and said “outside”.  Yes, sir.  Then he connected what I assume was a pressure-gauge and measured the gas pressure.  Next, he replaced the old black tube with a new yellow one.

He then asked me what my name was, to which I replied Chris.  I then asked him what his name was, and he gave me a reply in a slightly less gruff fashion.  Hmm….maybe he’s becoming friendly now.  He asked if there were any other gas outlets, asked me to sign something and then left.  He did say “have a nice day” at the end, so a small victory.

I found out from him that the apartments have to be inspected every 5 years and have a report on file.  My apartment didn’t have that report after the 5 year period, hence they shut off my gas.  I’m hoping they left some kind of notice, but highly doubt it.  Whatever, I’m happy to say I have plenty of gas again.  Dear Gas Man.

“These guys must be pros”

The silver lining, oh what a silver lining.  Mr. Federer was playing at 6am this morning and the Gas Man didn’t arrive until 9:30am, so I got to stay home and watch almost the entire match!  In fact, Gas Man rang the door bell on the first match point!

I’ve already expounded on what I love about Federer.  But today’s match was something else.  He was injured around the 3rd set and you could see his mood shift.  But his style of play also shifted, so you could see his full bag of tricks, which was a lot of fun to watch.

He should have lost the match, but he kept fighting.  He staved off seven match points, and on a few of them, you could see he was just lobbing the ball back asking his opponent to finish him off.  But it didn’t happen.  And Federer fought back.  It made me both sad and happy at the same time.  Sad seeing him hampered so much and unable to play the way he wanted to.  And happy seeing him fight and get through it.

After winning the 4th set and saving match points.

That fight is one of his best qualities, along with his fire.  He rarely lets his opponents see him struggle and almost never gives up on a match — the only time I can think of is the last set of the 2008 French Open against Nadal.

So yes, there was a silver lining to all this gas shut-off funny business.  A week of no gas in exchange for the opportunity to watch a full Federer match.  I’ll take that trade any time.