Remembering Bill

 

Bill Kelly, River Drive (now called Kelly Drive after the brother of Princess Grace Kelly, John Kelly who often jogged here parallel to the Schuykill River in center city Philadelphia. He (John Kelly) died while on this drive during one of his daily jogs - so much for jogging). Bill is pictured with his Chevrolet Corvair. The year is about 1966, ab out a year after I moved in with Bill. The beginning of my life with Bill. The next fifty-nine years were a dream, which I sorely miss so much now)

The last week has been very stressful for me. 

I think I had a panic attack this morning. All this sturm an drang is resulting from my recent problems with my refrigerator and HVAC system. Two different problems. Funny thing, about a month ago I was thinking things were going too smoothly in my life. I anticipated problems ahead and sure enough these past two weeks have proven that to be true.

The refrigerator situation is still not fixed. I cannot go into the details at this time because of privacy.

The HVAC situation I can go into with a very simple statement. My longtime HVAC company has been grossly overcharging me for years. Thousands of dollars. Of course I dismissed them after the latest attempt to overcharge me and I now have a new HVAC company. Of course I feel like a sucker that I let this company overcharge me for so long. This last time I just had enough. It just didn't make sense. Now I'm embarrassed. I feel like those old people who have been duped into losing their life savings to a pyramid scheme or an Internet romance. I feel so foolish I didn't see this coming. 

Basically, the company I've been using since 2010 was an employee owned company. I had service agreements with them. Never a problem. I felt smart that I was taking a pro active approach to maintaining my system. I was paying about $260 a year for a service agreement. For years it worked. Occasionally a small part had to be replaced but mostly, they just checked my system and that was it. Then about three years ago things started to go downhill. Every time they came (twice a year, once for the heat and the other time for the air conditioning), there were always charges in the hundreds and thousands of dollars. Three years ago I had to replace my whole system for $11,000. This is my third system since I moved to this brand new house in 2005. For comparison I lived in our Pennsylvania house and never paid anything for repair of my heat pump. NADA. Nothing. Here, I'm on my third system. Then last week when the serviceman appeared, he said I needed to replace (at least) three items. One for $400 and the other $480. Another (motor) for $1,520 and the fan for $500. Nothing was itemized like it was in the past. With my service agreement I was supposed to receive a 15% discount. The first time I received one of these sticker shock bills I asked "Is my discount in there?" I was told "It's in there."

Last year I cancelled my plumbing service agreement after the service man said he could "get me a good price ($3,000) to replace three of my four toilets. This came up because they had replaced Bill's bathroom toilet (Bill fell on that toilet and broke it) with one of theirs which was better than my three other builder grade toilets. What? Why would I want to replace my other three toilets? I don't even use those bathrooms. That plumber also charged me $777 for replacing a pipe in my bathroom. I thought that was a little pricey but what do I know? I'm not a plumber.

So with this latest attempt of overcharging me for jobs that probably didn't need to be done I did some research. I found out that this company is no longer employee owned. I also found out that the repairmen work on commission. AH HA! So that's it! This reminded me of when I lived in Pennsylvania and we had to get our cars inspected TWICE a year at an authorized dealer. Of course every time we went to the dealer, there was always a charge. ALWAYS! In the hundreds of dollars and sometimes thousands. EVERY TIME.

In Delaware, they do car inspections differently. Once every TWO years and at a state owned facility. The twenty year I've lived here I only had to pay ONCE to have a left rear turn signal replaced (the light had burned out). Pennsylvania has since reverted back to annual car inspections but still at an "authorized facility", which proves that lobbying works. When I bought my 2010 Subaru at the dealership here in Delaware I initially was going to my dealer every time to get my oil changed and for inspections. You guessed it. Every time they always found something "wrong" that resulted in bills for hundreds of dollars. About six years ago I stopped going to the dealership to get my oil changed, I go to a local guy. I only get charged for the oil change. No "You need new brake pads" or other things that I had no way of checking did I really need it or not?

I probably shouldn't be this way folks, to get this upset over knowing that I've been taken advantage of by my service company for the last several years. I feel like a fool.  I should have known better. 

I'm an honest person. My integrity is one of my most important values. I don't cheat people. I don't plan how I'm going to cheat. Perhaps that why I hate Trump so much. Why I don't get along with my brother. He's a cheater. Of course he's also a Trump supporter which is no surprise. I know that's a horrible thing to say about my brother but it's the truth. My other brother, who died a few years ago, wasn't a cheater. I've always been ashamed that a blood relative of mine, my sibling, is a cheater. Much as I'm ashamed that I permitted myself to be taken advantage of by this service company. My late friend Bob McCamley said something to me many years ago that shocked me at the time but now I realize in one respect he knew me better than I knew myself. He said "Ron, you are the most naive person I've ever known." When he told me that I didn't know whether or not to be offended or take it as a sincere observation from a close friend of mine. 

I'm far from a perfect person but one thing I am not is a liar, cheat and thief. Unfortunately too many people in this world are just that. One thing I realized many years ago is that the world is made up on wolves and sheep. I'm not a wolf but I would like to think I'm not a sheep either. Life is a challenge and as I wrote in my previous blog, life is about learning. I'm still learning folks. And I'll still be learning until the day I die. But you know what folks? I spent my whole adult life with that man in the picture with the Corvair and now I will spend the rest of my life with another man (Pat) who are both honest and loving men. In that respect I am very lucky. 

I look at my pictures of Bill and talk to Pat on FaceTime during times like this when I am so disgusted with some of my fellow human beings.