Refrigerator is fixed.

I called a local mobile RV service and a fellow named Rick came out. He had an untrustworthy smirk and immediately diagnosed that I needed a whole new cooler. I asked if he could get one today, he told me all the suppliers were closed for the week. I was bummed. I asked if we could scavenge one from a used refrigerator? He called his supplier just to prove that they were closed and guess what? They answered. He asked the lady if they were open, she said "not officially", but there were some people there today and he could come get the parts. The guy drove all the way to Kansas and picked up my new cooling unit and came back and installed it. It turns out that he DID know what he was doing. I'm so skeptical about repairmen who give me that "know-it-all" smirk, and diagnose a problem in 30 seconds without sharing the "why"s. I handled the pre-authorization with my warranty/contract people. His total bill was $1351.55 and I had to pay $100 deductible and $60.00 freight charge out of pocket, the warranty covered the rest. I was also pretty impressed with how the warranty people made him break down his entire bill for them and they approved each item. That was cool, I need to take a lesson from them and make mechanics and other repair people break it down for me and then I can approve or negotiate every line-item. All in all, he did a fine job and he got my refrigerator working in just one day. Kudos to Rick with RRA, I'm a vigilant skeptic and I hovered over him like a buzzard on roadkill, but he got it done right.

When I was a girl...
(Oh no, there she goes again. Another childhood story.)
Don't interrupt!
When I was a girl, you know we were raised poor with no income, we had to make do with what we had. My Mother had an old F150 stepside that was starting to break down. She took it to a mechanic who told her that it needed new tie-rod ends. The bill came to over $300.00. We were in a panic. $300 was a lot of money and we had no idea how to come up with it, we almost lost the truck over that repair-bill which would have left us stranded up on the mountain. Afterwards, my Mother put me in charge of fixing anything that went wrong. I was 14. If I had a question about something, she would give an exhausted sigh and yell: "Amber! There's a book on that somewhere around here, look it up!" I learned how to fix anything by looking it up. Sure, I made a few mistakes and I rigged not a few things up with baling wire.
I used to drain some old oil out of the oilpan for the chainsaw, and put new oil in the top. That way we didn't waste new oil on the chainsaw and the truck didn't need an oilchange. Brilliant, huh?
I have to laugh about all that stuff we did when we were poor.
I still have a lot of those habits. I can't see spending the money on a mechanic when I could do it myself.
Heck, this last year alone I did the fuel pump, power steering pump, trailer wiring harness, battery, window motor, belts, tune up with new wires, coil, distributor and rotor, fuel filter, PCV valve, spark plugs... I do enough to keep me fresh and my nails dirty. I did pay a mechanic to do the brakes: brake cylinders, master cylinder, brake line replacement, shoes, drums and rotors, and a trailer braking control module. I was having a bad braking problem, and I happened to trust this particular mechanic: he had admired my truck one day while I was pumping gas and offered that if I ever needed work done, he knows that model truck inside and out. Still, he kept it for two days and my bill was over $900.00.
See why I'm such a skeptic?
I'm not feeling so good today. My tonsils are swollen and I have a fever and my stomach has a lump like I've been digesting glass. My muscles are sore, probably from the fever, and my neck feels congested. I don't know how to describe it any better, but it's like the pressure on both sides of my neck can't go any higher than my jaw. I can't stand to breath the hot air from the heater, but my body feels the chill in the room. I tried drinking a pot of hot black coffee thinking that I would snap out of it and go to work, but I think I will call in sick and go back to bed.
I haven't called in sick in a long time and I have 60 hours of sick leave saved up so it won't hurt anything, I just hate to leave the guys hanging without me.
I'm going back to bed now.
Thanks for listening.
MsAmber