maxiewawa

As I type, there are three workers climbing around on a scaffolding that is on top of a tall office building near my apartment. I hope that they have taken safety precautions!

Seeing these guys reminds me of the time my landlord had to climb around on the exterior of my apartment. One summer, something went wrong with the air conditioner. As happens when something is broken, I called my landlord. It didn’t take him long to come around and see what was wrong: he said that a pipe was broken, and would just need to be replaced. He seemed a little bit relieved, he’d be able to do it himself without buying any extra spare parts or spending any money. He said that the same thing had happened to him once, and that he had some spare hose at his apartment. He lives in the same complex, so he dashed home to get it. He returned not more than ten minutes later carrying a short length of tubing.

I was a little puzzled as what he intended to do with the tube. It was only 30cm or so, and quite thin. He had said that all he would have to do was swap this new tube for the old one. But I couldn’t see a similar tube anywhere. The air conditioner was just a big metal box that sits in a corner of the living room. No thin white tubes anywhere. But he seemed to know what he was doing. As I started to move furniture around so that he could get at the air conditioner, he opened a window, and climbed out.

A look of surprise crossed my face, and a look of horror crossed Aika’s as we realised what he was doing. He had slid open our window, clumsily hauled both legs overand gripping the flimsy handrail, inched across to the exterior part of the air conditioner.

I hadn’t realised, but there is an exterior part to the big, two meter tall machine in my living room that pumps out cold air. It was a pipe on the EXTERIOR that had broken, and needed to be replaced.

And we live on the 22nd floor, and the exterior air conditioner isn’t made for easy access or anything. They didn’t put it in a convenient, easy to reach place in case someone had to, at some point in time, fix or replace the thing. Anyone that has to reach it must be spiderman or something.

Before asking if he needed a rope or anything, my landlord had made his way to the exterior part of the air conditioner, which sits on a specially made ledge next to one of the exterior walls. He was sitting on it, and reaching around trying to feel for the leaking tube. The new tube was in his mouth as he felt around for it. He was 22 floors above ground level, the wind whipping his hair and business jacket.

My landlord isn’t a spry young guy either. He’d obviously shown up to fix my air conditioner after work. He was dressed in a business suit, and is in his mid forties. He’d spent all day at the office, but before retiring for the day, he had found himself sitting on an air conditioner, 22 stories up, awkwardly fumbling around for a leaking plastic pipe.

He fixed it. No problem. He replaced the pipe, slowly made his way along the ledge again, and climbed back in the window. “I’m really sorry about the mess,” he said, indicating a pair of dirty footprints. “Can I open my eyes now?” said Aika. As he had climbed out the window, she had closed her eyes.

I didn’t know what to say! “Thank you, thank you thank you!” I felt myself thanking him so much for his help, for risking his life for the broken tube. It was quite surreal actually, for both sides. I could see that he felt quite uncomfortable about all the fuss we were making. I wouldn’t be surprised if somewhere in cyberspace, there’s a blog entry by my landlord, something along the lines of “I went to my tenant’s apartment to fix a pipe, and he acted like I had saved the world or something!”.

I’ve included a picture of the exterior of my air conditioner. This is what my landlord was sitting on, in his suit and tie, hair being blown by the wind, groping around blindly for a broken pipe.