or: When is it best to have a shower or eat a meal when you’re expecting a service provider?

I thought I understood Island Time.

I don’t. 

Under last week’s phase of the lockdown, we’ve been able to have a few things in the house fixed so I’ve been visited by an electrician, a plumber and a window maker / installer.

While that starts like the beginning of a joke, there is no bar involved in this story.

The electrician arrived one morning, put some tools and electrician stuff on a chair and said he’d be back after picking up some more supplies in Grand Bay (this is about 15 minutes away by car). 

After a few hours, he hadn’t returned so I figured maybe he stopped for lunch.

We saw him the next day.

He’s now left his tools here again and was due to be back. 

That could be any day now I guess.

The plumber was due to arrive at 8.30am. I figured he’d turn off the water supply so I wanted to have a shower before he arrived. I was ready to jump in when he turned up at 8.20am.

We were told by the window guy’s mother (there are a lot of family businesses here) that he wouldn’t be available to visit until the next day. He turned up that night.

He measured the space for the window (windows can be any size you decide so are need to be custom made) and came back, exactly on time, the following day with a newly constructed window and installed it.

Now I’m confused.

To be prepared for all eventualities, it seems to be best if I shower earlier, make sure I’m around just in case someone arrives and not wait to eat a meal thinking that whoever we’ve made an appointment with will arrive in 15 minutes.

They could be early.

Or late.

Or on time.

Or arrive tomorrow.

 

Thanks to The Killers for the title to this post. 

Note – I’m very impressed with the work all these people have done. The turnaround time for a custom window is amazing; the electrician hasn’t quite finished yet (not sure when that will be – guess that’s part of the adventure) and his bits and pieces are all working well; the plumber has done an amazing job, great water pressure now, and pipes have been installed for parts of the kitchen which we’d started making changes to before the lockdown started. 

Happy days!