I have the back of the vest almost all knit, thanks to waiting for the electrician ALL yesterday afternoon.

He never showed.

I called both his cell and home numbers, left messages. Finally got his wife and left a message with her. He now has my cell, office, and home phones.

I broke a major personal rule and carried my cell phone, turned on, into my evening class. He didn't call.

I had called the furnace guy again, told him "I NEED a new electrician, this one is obviously too busy to help me"

The furnace guy called back, while I was at class (he KNEW I was at class). He said he had called the electrician and talked to him and the electrician had claimed I was "never" home when he called and that I had left him "no" messages.

For the record: he called me once, last Wednesday evening. I was at church. I had said on the message that afternoon "I will be at church tonight but you can leave a message." If he called again, he didn't leave any messages, and at that point he had both my office and my home numbers.

As for my not leaving him any messages, the only way that could be true is if both his home and cell phone voice-mail boxes are broken, and his wife failed to give him my message. So I'm calling bullpucky on this one.

The furnace guy also pooh-poohed my concern, saying "Oh, it's not going to get that cold this weekend." He also said "Everyone's real busy, preparing for the winter. I'm behind."

Yeah, great, that helps me a lot. I feel like my concerns are not being taken seriously, that I'm being left to swing in the wind because I'm not a business with a large furnace needing a lot of work or a high-paying customer.

Or maybe it's that I'm a single woman
Or maybe it's that I'm a Northerner, not a native.
Or maybe it's that you're actually supposed to bribe workmen to come and I've never learned that rule.

So now, I have a dilemma:

Do I wait yet another day, and hope and pray the electrician calls?

Do I call the man who is the custodian at my church and ask him who he recommends? I think he'd give a good recommendation, he's as impatient as I am about getting work done.

Do I call the other Carrier furnace-service place in town and just ask them to come out and give me a second opinion on what's wrong with my furnace?

I'm really frustrated - it's supposed to get down into the 30s Thursday night. I can't take this much longer. I have a baby shower to go to on Saturday - and a gift to buy for said shower. I was hoping to do something nicer than Wal-Mart, but the mother-to-be may be getting baby undershirts from Wally World because I won't have the time to shop anywhere nicer. (I would have begged off the shower but about half of the invitees are going to be out of town, so I feel like I should go).

My parents are coming Thanksgiving and if my heat's not fixed by then, we'll all be staying in a motel.

I just want to cry. In the middle of all this, I'm being asked to take on still more responsibilities at church, I've been told one of the things in the committeework packet is "WRONG" (not clear if it's my error or theirs). I feel like I'm being pulled in fifteen directions and none of them is a good one.

I'm almost WISHING I got the flu so I could just take a week or so and be by myself and be freed from everybody needing me for everything. (This is why I would make a bad mother. I cannot stand always having to be the person who fixes everything that goes wrong. I can't stand being on-call 24/7).