Last week a repairman came over to the house to check out our furnace. It was buzzing and clicking and gurgling, so naturally I was concerned it might blow up and destroy half the neighborhood.

Repairmen always do the same thing. They waltz into your house and snicker, “So what’s the problem?” When I try to tell them by blathering on and on about the buzzing and the gurgling…they wave me off to shut me up and disappear down into the basement.

Yeah, they disappear, do god knows what for about 30 minutes, then come back with this assessment.

Repairman [hitches up his pants, sniffs loudly, smirks]: You got a problem.

Idiot: Oh yeah? I got a problem? I think the problem is you’re about to charge me a ridiculous amount of money because I’m an idiot.

Repairman: Yeah, see….the thingamabob is rusty and has disconnected from the dingleberry…

Idiot [nodding]: Oh, yeah the DINGLEBERRY! See, I knew it had a technical term but…dingleberry. Huh.

Repairman: [smirks] No, no, no. The dingleberry ain’t da problem, ya see? It’s your carbunculator. And that…[laughs like a homicidal maniac observing his prey] that don’t come cheap.

Idiot: Well, I wouldn’t imagine a carbunculator would…

Repairman: Besides, me and Scooter back at the shop, see, we gotta special order it.

Idiot: OH!

Repairman: Yeah, see we gotta have it specially made from these pieces of bamboo that only grow in Timbuktu. Apparently, some sheep herder in his spare time harvests plants, then burns them with locally grown kookaberries to make this special liquid. This liquid is then mixed with the tears of the village’s oldest virgin. Her name’s Chlamydia and she’s like, 54 years old and super bitter. This concoction is then solidified into plastic and fashioned into the carbunculator. Then the carbunculator is put into a little satchel. The satchel is strapped to a donkey–and the village has only one donkey left and he’s got diabetes and a whole thing with his bad leg–anyways, this donkey makes a treacherous journey through the frozen tundra high up in the Himalayas, the carbunculator snug in its satchel on his back the entire time. If the donkey doesn’t croak on his journey–and man, I can’t tell you how many times that’s happened–the carbunculator is then delivered to a magic man in the remote east mountain range of Zhooshka. The magic man blesses it by dipping it in the river under the super blood wolf moon. Unbeknownst to many in the carbunculator field, you are not to do this under the super blood wolverine moon. Honest mistake but again–friggin’ been there, done that.
Then it’s packaged with bubble wrap at the local UPS hub and shipped to yours truly. [smirks] So it’s gonna cost ya.

Idiot: I’ll take two.