Mett-Rage

Today I received a text message from an unknown number with a photo of some kind of piece of electrical equipment with what looked like a dead squirrel on a ledge of the piece of equipment. “Is that a dead squirrel?” I inquired of myself, thinking I must be misperceiving it. It proved to be two dead squirrels, one appearing freshly deceased and the other in a fairly advanced state of decomposition.

The accompanying text was precisely this:

“Mini splits need good sealing up at installation see email just sent Julian ann arbor”

I was thoroughly perplexed; I thought maybe I had been added by mistake to an exchange among the employees of the company installing our mini split (whatever that is); just as I was reading this mystifying message, with its sinister accompanying photo, I could hear the crashing and banging overhead of the mini split installers.

I asked, “Who are you?”

Answer: “Friend of tom.”

Oh! This was my father’s friend who advised me to get a Mitsubishi air conditioner (mini split and also heat pump) (I really could not tell you what a mini split is) just after my sister and I had decided to do just that.

It turned out that Julian’s similar or identical unit had been installed in a non-rodent-proof manner, and so he was getting in touch to warn me about this. The email to which he alluded went into much more detail, and offered a couple of solutions with step by step instructions, very like something my father would have sent upon making a discovery that his relatives might benefit from.

Given the precision timing, I texted Julian that it was almost enough to make one believe in a literal afterlife: Two messages so far from our father in heaven about this air conditioning system, both via Julian.

I gave the air conditioning company a call to make sure they were going to prevent us from having this problem. Our fellow there said that this is outside their purview normally (a bit annoying given the cost), but he said if I provided steel wool, they would mix it with some grey electricians’ glop and seal it up as best they could. He said it’s hard to stop mice from getting to these systems, where they enjoy nestling against the warm piece of machinery. (In Julian’s case, they damaged the motherboard and he is having to have that replaced for $1400.)

Mice? I went back and looked at the photo. I had not understood the scale of the piece of equipment correctly. It was smaller than I thought, and the two dead rodents were mice.

I went over to ACE to get some steel wool and to Arbor Farms, right next door, for groceries.

On my way, I practiced metta for my fellow drivers, especially whoever I was stopped behind at lights:

May you be happy.
May you be peaceful.
May you be free of suffering.
May you be at ease.
May you live a long, healthy, happy life.

And then I totally lost my temper with a fellow who works at ACE. I have observed this exact sequence of events before: By whatever means, I arrive at a state where my heart is hugely and tenderly and warmly open, and then I take offense when others don’t happen to be in the exact same state of mind. Or rather, I suspect the mechanism is that I have let some of my own defenses fall away and thus am not prepared when I encounter adversity.

I walked into ACE and over to an island near the middle of the store. This is a wondrous store. It has a massive collection of beautiful kitchen things. I want everything in it. At the island, an employee asked what I needed.

I said, “Three things: steel wool, ant baits, and a specialty tool.”

He looked totally outraged, like I had just grievously insulted him and pushed way past the boundaries of acceptable behavior. He announced that they don’t have tools. I am pretty sure he left out the word “specialty,” but that must have been inadvertent, or perhaps I am misremembering.

Anyway, what?!? Game on, ACE employee!

“You don’t have tools anywhere in this hardware store?!?”

He started to say something, but I, furious, said, “Never mind, never mind; I’ll ask someone else,” and I marched off while he was still trying to speak to me.

I found another employee and said, “Are you in a good mood? Because the person I just talked to wasn’t.”

He said, “Oh, that was Mr. Grumpy.”

By then, I was already feeling kind of bad about the exchange, and I said, “Well, I can also be grumpy if you catch me in the right mood. I shouldn’t have taken offense.”

The second employee found the steel wool and ant baits, but wasn’t sure about the specialty tool, which I will need to get my father’s license plate off the car and put mine on. The employee offered to walk out and look at the car with me, where he said he had never seen such a thing.

Back in the store, he consulted a third employee who explained that this was an anti-theft screw for which you need a special screwdriver bit. I suspect I will find this thing in the car, because that’s where my father would have put it, but the ACE employee also told me where I can buy the little kit that contains this item, if necessary.

I now went back to Mr. Grumpy and apologized for being Miss Grumpy, adding, “You were totally right: You don’t have that tool.” We had an entirely pleasant exchange, both smiling, and I left the store feeling happy instead of ashamed of myself.

I decided not to worry about the proposed Ypsilanti Township data center too much. It looks like Ypsilantians and Ypsilanti Townshipians are a determined bunch who may succeed in preventing this facility from being built in the location initially proposed; the spot they prefer is outside Ypsilanti Township.

Furthermore, it is not due to begin operation by 2031, by which time who knows what will be happening, and finally, maybe they actually will build something that doesn’t cause problems for the community, though probably not. One little problem is that whether the thing emits a low-frequency hum or not, I will be positive I’m hearing one.