When I imagined the challenges of living in France, it was always quaint things, like trying to figure out what kind of cheese I should get from the nice lady in the market who speaks no English but is very sensitive to taste-related hand gestures (comté extra; chèvre wrapped in dry autumn leaves). In other words, I didn’t think ahead to the inevitable day when our washing machine would break down.
“It’s under warranty,” Nick said smugly. “Just call them, and they’ll send a guy.”
Fabulous.
I made it through the automated menu, which was no easy task, as they all seem to use those horrible ones where you have to respond verbally, and it’s not like the U.S. ones, where if it doesn’t understand you it just gives you to a person. Oh, no: in true French fashion, the horrid automated man just keeps listing your options and waiting for you to say it right.
Anyway. It went pretty well to start with: we established who I am, and that the thing is indeed under warranty, and that it’s making an ungodly noise, and that I wanted someone to fix it.
“Have you looked at the filter?”
Caught off guard, I ran to the machine while trying to stall. “Pardon?” This is the extent of my stalling skills in French.
“Behind the panel at the blah is a filter; you have to blah blah blah no warranty blah it’s usually [whole long thing].”
“I don’t see…my fiancé would probably…he bought it, you see…but there’s no…I’m looking….” I mean…really. We’ve had the thing nearly a year now; this is the first we’re hearing about the mysterious filter? Which, incidentally, is also apparently hidden behind an invisible panel? But the regretful French-like noises coming through the phone told me that I was losing the woman, so I pulled it together.
“Ah! Mais, si je peux…s’il vous plaît!” I blurted nonsensically, and thrust the phone into the washing machine, which I began turning by hand.
Upon hearing the incredible metal-on-metal screeching and banging, she immediately agreed that this was not a “filter” issue–either that or she was afraid that I was going to inflict the noise on her again, because she promised to send someone out as soon as possible, which was yesterday. Did I mention that this call took place last Friday? It’s been a long, laundry-less week.
It got just that extra bit longer when the tech didn’t show up at 8am. Now, I know that these things are usually windows rather than appointments, but the fact remains that I had been offered a range of two-hour intervals, so I was a bit surprised when the guy hadn’t gotten here by 10am. And even more surprised when he finally did arrive–at 11:30. And most of that had to do with the fact that, during the last three-and-a-half hours, I had kind of…well…fixed the problem. By which I mean “located the tip of the underwire that had been causing the awful noises, and pulled it back out of the drum.”
Oops.
So there wasn’t even much for the guy to do, except test the cycles to make sure there was no damage, stick the “Run” button back on, since it fell off weeks ago (he used super glue, for crying out loud), and play with the puppy while showing me the elusive filter (anything that requires a knife to pry it off is not a panel that I will be checking behind any time soon). And he told me all of this ramble-y stuff about what maintenance we should and should not do on our own, so that now I have no clue whether any given action will save me some money, or completely void my refrigerator’s warranty.
But it’s okay, because I have clean sheets now, and last night Marie told me approvingly that I looked very French, while simultaneously cooing over my beautifully-wrapped chèvre (which tasted even better than it looked). So…suddenly things are just as I imagined they would be.