Okay, so I get it.

There are any number of close friends and family members who delight in pointing out that I am getting on in years.  I usually accredit that to jealousy or ignorance.  However, life does have a way of smacking you in the face with the fact that one is not as young as one once was!

When I truly take stock of myself, I find I am seriously wearing out.  I have one knee replaced and the other will have to be sooner or later.  I have arthritis in a variety of joints.  The twinges and muscle spasms and general aches and pains ping and pong throughout my body - somedays worse - somedays better - never gone. My blood pressure is high, and it has NOTHING to do with all the salt and animal fat that make up the base of my food pyramid. I can no longer remember a 7 digit phone number long enough to go from the phone book to dial it so that when I make a call I look like I am watching the final at Wimbledon - phone book - dial - phone book - dial - phone book - dial.  No wonder I am so annoyed with the person who answers the phone when I misdial - its a lot of work to redial!!! (Another sign of aging is referring to the number pad as a dial)

But, the worst insult of all is the failing eyesight.  A lot of it is working with computer so much.  I am squinting at it 7.5 hours a workday and when not at work I surf and blog way more than is healthy for me. But, my optometrist, a man who is annoying beyond measure - please see previous blog regarding getting new lenses in my glasses in downtown Regina - kindly pointed out that the ability to focus diminishes with aging.  Focus you buddy, I am not aging.

Alas, circumstance forces me to recognize the sorry truth.  The big element on my ceramic cooktop stove burned out.  I am big on solving my problems over the Internet so I googled "ceramic cooktop burner burned out" and literally hundreds of thousands of websites popped up to help me.  And each and every one of them required a Model Number or a Serial Number before they could help me.  I knew I was in trouble, but forged ahead anyway.  "Need help finding your model number" the red link asked.  I clicked on it to find a picture of a stove with a number of places where the model number may be located.  Was mine located inside the oven door, behind the stove near the top, or on the side of the stove?  No, sadly not.  Mine was located on the "lower left leg behind the utility drawer". 

With my knee replacement, crouching down is a strict no-no.  Kneeling on it is pretty painful.  Getting down onto the floor can be negotiated, but getting back up is so close to impossible I avoid getting down.  I overcame this, though, only to find once I was down there, the Model number blurred and swam before me.  I took my glasses off.  No help.  Was that a C or a G, that could be a B or maybe an 8? Could there really be that many numbers and letters in one Model?  I needed a magnifying glass.  I got up, I won't go into the details but it was far from pretty.  I hunted and searched and cursed and found the magnifying glass at last.  Now, I was so traumatized by getting up the first time, there was no way I could get down on the floor again.  So I bent over and put the glass to the Model number.  Yes, yes it did help.  However, now I had to bend my head at a 90 degree angle.  This made my eyes blur.  But, that was a B not an 8.  But, now I am getting kind of sick and dizzy from staring through this magnifying glass so long.  WTF, I would simply call an appliance repairman. 

So, I called an excellent repairman, highly recommended, who returned my call quickly.  He would be happy to fix it.  I just needed to give him the Model number.

/bye