What's News?

 A former reality TV villain running as a Republican is not news. The fact that this same "Republican" chose to run for mayor of one of the most predominantly Democratic strongholds in the country and did not win is not news. 

Additionally, another former reality TV villain who managed to get elected twice to the highest office in the land chose to show his face back in his former home town after making ugly noises as he fled for safer waters in south Florida got lustily booed by fans of his former home town's basketball franchise is not news. Nor is the fact that he fell asleep while "watching" the game that had been specially secured for him to find a seat while lifetime fans of that team had been shut out is not news. 

Here is some news: About a week ago after the party I hosted for the staff of my school, I noticed that the ice maker on our refrigerator had stopped working. As is my custom I went straight to YouTube to see if there was a troubleshooting video that would help me sort out this problem. 

There was.

This is not news.

I followed the directions carefully and fiddled with the control panel inside the door of my very fancy fridge. Lights blinked and beeps were heard, but I could not get the ice maker to start back up. Somehow I had managed to lock up the functions of my refrigerator to the point where nothing I did made any difference. I even went to far as to take the troubleshooter's suggestion of unplugging the appliance, waiting five minutes and then starting fresh. I tried this twice and got the same parade of lights with no change in function. At this point I surrendered. I scheduled an appointment with a technician to service my machine. 

This is not the news, but it does qualify as a revelation, of sorts. 

So I waited. 

A whole week. This is not the news, but it does give you a sense of how the tension built for me. In the meantime, our ice maker decided to start working again. The lights inside on the control panel: no change.

The night before the scheduled appointment, I did not sleep. I dreamed of all the ways that this could go wrong, from waiting for the tech in the middle of the street outside in the rain to discovering the expense of the replacement of that one sticky button. 

When the tech finally arrived, he apologized for making us wait until almost noon for him to show. I ushered him into the kitchen and introduced him to the refrigerator, along with a short dissertation on all the attempts I had made to revive it. He thanked me and opened the door where the control panel sat there, all lit up. 

I left hi to his work. 

Moments later, I heard the tech call, "You're not going to like this." I hastend back into the kitchen, fearing my dreams had come true. He pointed to the control panel. "All fixed," he announced. 

This is not the news, but we're getting there. 

I leaned in, surprised and embarrassed. "What did you do?"

He showed me the button combination that I was sure that I had tried a number of times before giving up. His magic touch had returned our appliance to normal function. 

I thanked him profusely. Now here comes the news: He didn't charge me. Normally a house call would run at least one hundred eighty dollars, but he didn't feel like he could do that to me. We agreed that if the company called that I could say that he talked me through the fix over the phone and there would be no charge. 

No charge.

That's the news. 

If this guy ever runs for office, he's got my vote.