My mother was always adamant all of us all had to come home for the holidays! That was her central rule, even if my siblings and I were in college on opposite sides of the country… All of us knew it was futile trying to convince mom all of us could not make it to the house while all of us were in the Winter season break… Last year, mom booked all our flights and made sure all of us had the tickets on time to prevent delays.
She wanted us at the house because our Grandma was flying in to see us.
I got home first and helped mom get a few things sorted in the house. Mom had bought a modern AC equipment and had it installed in the house. The outdated machine had served us for over 10 years and was beyond repair when it stopped working last month… Then apart from replacing the aging AC unit, mom also asked the AC supplier to install a smart temperature control. The heating and A/C mechanic came to the house to take care of the upgrade while I was there… He seemed to guess what he was doing, but the task went on too fast. I did not ask why he had set up the smart temperature control so abruptly but talked to mom about it. Later in the morning, all of us realized the AC expert had not set up the temperature control the best way. This was because the AC equipment kept shutting down and powering back on. Mom wanted to prevent any damage to the modern air conditioner, so she asked myself and others to switch it off completely. I called a friend of mine who I knew was an AC mechanic to come to our aid. She went by the house and began inspecting the smart temperature control. It turns out some wires were not linked to the temperature control, which was why it kept malfunctioning.