Costly repairs and a "Good Luck"

I returned home and went back to RAM expecting more of the same and I was not disappointed. At home, we found a repairman to fix our broken appliances. He repaired the washer and dryer without much trouble, but the coils on the refrigerator had been broken to the point that they were nearly beyond repair. He said the refrigerator might work and then spent a considerable amount of time repairing the damage. After he had completed the work, he commented about the extent of the damage and then as he was leaving he unexpectedly extended his hand to shake mine.

Then he said, "Boy, I don't know what you did, but good luck."

The amazing thing was that I was beginning to believe that I had done something wrong. I felt that I was indeed to blame for my predicament. It is interesting when you see a newscast about someone who is robbed, beaten and terrorized, you automatically think that the low-life criminals are to blame and they should be put in jail or worse. But, when low-life powerbrokers destroy someone's life, and they rob and terrorize a victim, people tend to think the victim is a deserving receipient. It goes back to Stanely Millgram's "Obedience To Authority". If the powerbrokers say the victim is deserving of the torture, then people just accept it. In other words, right and wrong is defined by who is doing the terrorism and torture in the mind's of most people. This concept that right and wrong are relative, is how Nazi states are born.

The TV repair was another major problem. When the repairman came to our house, he said the 23 inch picture tube(this is 1978) had to be replaced, and the cost would be two hundred and fifty dollars. Then he told me it would take 3-4 weeks to replace the tube. When I questioned himn as to the reason for the long time to replace an RCA picture tube, the repairman became very uneasy. He had no answer and took the TV. He said he would call us when it was ready.

That evening evening Anita and I went shopping and we happened to drive past the TV repair shop. I stopped, went in and identified myself to the man behind the desk. He inquired into the nature of my problem and when I told him about the TV, he assured me that it could be fixed in three to four days. Just then the repair man who had picked up the TV walked into the room. The man at the desk that I had just talked to begain drilling the repairman as to why he had said it would take three to four weeks to replace a picture tube. The two got into a heated argument, and the repairman supporting the three to four weeks position had no real reason for the long time other that that was the way things were. Finally the man at the desk said it would be three to four weeks although he didn't know why. I left the shop feeling that "they" were somehow involved.