A wise man once said “Every waking day, you can be assured of one thing – You will pay school fees”  

Three months ago I had a problem with my washing machine, I found a name of a repair person in a daily newspaper and he assured me he had the necessary qualifications to do the job. He took the first washing machine which had been in storage for some time and I told him which part needed replacement. The part and labour came to R 800.00 I was fortunate, because he handed me a flyer which entitled me to a 10% discount on all parts and labour. Yippee.  I had just saved close to eighty bucks. Or had I?

He then dropped machine “A” off and fetched the good machine with the small problem. He then took machine “B” to replace the troublesome rubber seal. As the seal had to be ordered, I was to use the recently refurbished and good as new machine in the meantime. Well, washday arrived and when we switched the machine on, the street lights grew dim and a blue jet like flame shot across the laundry room and the neighborhood fell dark and silent. After checking that everybody was alright I bumped through the darkness, found the distribution board and then reset all the necessary switches. I then had to pry the door of the washing machine open and it was off to the Laundromat the following day and R75.00 later.

I then called the technician and he explained that although he replaced the timer mechanism, he had not tested the machine. But as his work is guaranteed, he would repair it at no extra cost. This of course never materialized.  R 800.00 down the drain with fabric softener.

Alas, he was happy to report had repaired machine “B” so there was no urgency. He then, with a great smile and service, delivered the now repaired machine and took the other machine back to his scrap yard/ workshop/corporate head office. I handed over R300.00 for the seal replacement and once again qualified for the discount as I had become a valued customer, which included a special rate on all future jobs. I had just saved a whacking R27.00

That evening, we dutifully loaded the repaired machine with the daily laundry and viola! On switch on, a blue flame shot across the laundry room (which doubles as a kitchen during the day) and the neighborhood once again fell dark and silent. I had become a one man load shedding machine. Who needs Eskom to screw things up.