The joys of renting include not paying for the repair of an appliance. When our clothes dryer stopped drying clothes recently, I grinned a no-problem grin and called in a maintenance request to the front office. After the obligatory “did you clean the filter” question, the complex manager said he would have a maintenance person over to have a look.

Thursday morning I answered a knock on my door. It was Danny with his tackle box. Danny is the apartment complex landscaper. I like him a lot and he’s been doing a stellar job plowing the parking lot with his big, red “Danny’s Landscaping” pickup truck.

But is Danny a repairman too? I was skeptical, but put my fears aside and bade him welcome.

While I explained the issue, that the dryer wasn’t blowing hot air despite a clean filter and a reset of the circuit, the small man with the “I heart Jesus” hat that was Danny marched right into our utility closet, repeating the word “yah” in a thick eastern European accent. He checked the filter and I sighed. “You see, it’s not blowing hot air …” said I in an effort to help our would-be repairman.

Now, whatever the opposite of a handyman is, I’m that. Yet when I looked in his open tacklebox and saw only plastic drinking straws and charcoal sticks, I couldn’t help but be a little suspicious. He moved the washer/dryer unit (one of those combo units that fit nicely in small spaces but allow for, oh, say, two pairs of underpants to be washed at a time,) and weasled in behind it, touching things.

Touch. Touch touch touch. Poke. “You see, it’s the heats,” said Danny. “I see this all the time.”

Out came the screwdriver, and the next part happened in slow motion. Danny reached behind the dryer unit, touched something with the screwdriver, and the biggest spark of electricity I’ve ever seen arced and popped at him. FWAPOW! He jumped, and then froze.

“Hey man, are you okay,” I asked in terror.

There was a long pause, after which he responded, “Oh yah, fine.”

To my surprise, Danny regrouped quickly and continued talking about the “heats.”

“Yes, I call office and tell them it’s the heats. If it’s not the heats, it’s the sweets.”

No, I don’t know what “the sweets” means. I even asked him, “Now, what is it you think is wrong?” He just repeated, “Either the heats or the sweets,” pointing to the back of the dryer the whole time. What would you have done? How would you have cleared this up?

Danny didn’t remove any panels with his screwdriver, nor did he turn anything nor adjust anything. He simply came into my apartment, electrocuted himself, told me about “the heats and the sweets,” and promised the office would get the parts sometime tomorrow. Then, he was gone.

And so I wait for Danny to come back and help me.

And the laundry piles up.

And my eyes well up with tears of laughter when I think of the whole “heats and sweets” debacle.

Heats and Sweets. 01/31/08