Mr. W’s younger brother, K, has a knack for acquiring free
stuff. He’s a world-class schmoozer so
everyone loves him. As a result,
whenever people have free stuff they’re looking to give away (sports tickets,
fancy clothes, TVs, you name it), he’s the first person they contact. I’m pretty certain someone even gave him a
free boat, though I could be wrong about that one.
We’ve been lucky enough to benefit from some of K’s charisma
and resourcefulness. Each year, when K
returns from college, he collects an assortment of unwanted things that his
roommates would otherwise throw out.
Last year, he gave us a window-unit air conditioner. Apparently, some roommate thought it would be
too much of a “hassle” to take the air conditioner with him when he moved out. We had been planning to buy an A/C
for our living room, so K’s freeloading saved us $150-$200. Thanks, K, for keeping our living room cool
and comfy!
This summer, we decided it was finally time to buy an air
conditioner for our kitchen. We’d tried
to resist getting another air conditioner.
We already have three window units, which seems like a lot for a four-room
apartment. But we just couldn’t stand
the temperature in the kitchen. On a
mild summer day, it averages 86 degrees.
On a brutally hot day, such as those we’ve been having recently, the
kitchen temperature creeps closer to 95, even if we make an effort not to use
any heat-generating appliances.
We were having dinner with Mr. W’s parents and they mentioned
that K had brought home yet another free air conditioner from school. K wasn’t planning to use it since he already
had one. K wasn’t home at the time, but Mr.
W’s parents offered it to us. It would save us another $150-$200. Awesome, right? Everyone loves free stuff.
At 8:30 PM on a
Sunday evening, we trekked home with the air conditioner and started the long
process of installing it in our kitchen window.
Having lived in 1920s houses his entire life, Mr. W is a pro at
installing window-unit air conditioners.
He installs at least half a dozen every summer. Let’s just say that installing this
particular A/C was quite an ordeal.
For starters, our kitchen window looks like this:
Yep, it’s a really small window. And it’s about 8 feet above the ground. It’s also usually blocked by a 4’ x 3’ kitchen island,
which currently holds our wedding registry gifts (not pictured, above). All 19,000 pounds of them. Here is how our evening progressed:
8:30-9:00 PM: Move all items off of kitchen island. Move kitchen table to make room for kitchen island. Move kitchen island to allow access to
window. Start to feel anxious about all
the miscellaneous appliances that are now scattered around our apartment. (Okay, this was just me. Mr. W does not have issues with clutter)
9:00-9:15 PM: Discover that window is too small to install
A/C without removing the bottom window pane.
Remove bottom window pane. Balance
precariously on kitchen chair, while lifting air conditioner into window. Discover that there is now a slight gap
between top of window and top of air conditioner. Thus, there is no way to secure the A/C in
the window. Decide to try wedging some planks between the window and A/C to
eliminate the gap.
9:15-9:45 PM: Mr. W drives to his parents’ house to pick up
planks.
9:45-10:15 PM: Once again, balance precariously on kitchen
chair while lifting A/C into window. Successfully
wedge planks between window and A/C.
Unit now fits securely in window.
Mr. W tries to use screwdriver to screw A/C in place. We’ve manually screwed in
every other A/C in our apartment, but it’s just not working in this case.
10:15-10:40 PM: Mr. W drives to parents’ house to pick up
his power drill. In the meantime, I’m
standing on the chair, holding the A/C in place above my head (keep in mind, it’s
over 90 degrees during this entire ordeal)
10:40-11:00 PM: Mr. W returns with the drill and screws the
A/C into the window pane. We plug the
A/C into the outlet. With bated breath,
we press the “ON” button. The A/C turns
on for one enticing second, then switches off again.
We tried resetting the outlet, and still the same thing happens.
11:00-11:30 PM: We wonder if there could be something wrong
with the outlet. Perhaps the A/C voltage
is too high for that particular outlet?
Mr. W does some Googling but his research is inconclusive. We decide to try plugging the A/C into another
outlet. The A/C cord isn’t long enough
to reach another outlet, so we disconnect the extension cord from another
appliance. We plug the A/C into an
outlet we use daily. Still nothing.
At this point, we were done troubleshooting. We were both tired, cranky, and dripping
sweat. I was still feeling anxious about
the fact that there was a KitchenAid stand mixer on our guest bed (We weren’t
inviting anyone over. What was the big
deal?) Our kitchen island was where the
kitchen table usually went. Our kitchen
table was blocking the front door. We
moved those back into place so we could leave for work in the morning. We
left the A/C in the window, figuring we’d ask K if he knew why it wasn’t
working.
The next day, Mr. W called his brother K. He explained our difficulty and asked K if he
had ever used the free air conditioner. After
a long pause, K said, “Oh man…I don’t think that A/C will work. It was sitting outside in the rain for three
days.”
Oh boy. I’m not sure
why that A/C was sitting in the rain for three days (???!). And none of this is K’s fault. We just appreciate his generosity. He hadn’t been home when Mr. W’s parents
offered us the A/C, or else he would have warned us accordingly. But Mr.
W and I both felt like schmucks for not testing the A/C before going through the
trouble of installing it in our kitchen window.
The very same day, we went to Home Depot and spent $170 on a
new air conditioner. After removing the
free inoperable A/C, installing the new one was much easier. As far as we’re concerned, it was the best
$170 we’d ever spent.
Moral of the story: if you accept something free, confirm
that it works before you waste a lot of time or effort.
Have you ever received something free that turned out to be too good to be true?
