Upon returning to campus this January, my roommates and I undertook some major rearranging in our dorm room. Once everything started looking more like an actual dwelling and not a homeless shelter, we decided it was time to finally report the missing tension rod for one of the windows in our room. We had gone without any curtains and just had the standard, big pull-down shade, but decided that we wanted to live like real people and not poor college kids, so drapes would probably be a good place to start. The following Monday, I was asleep taking (one of) my daily nap(s) when a startling knock on the door woke me up.
I was in no way expecting maintenance to be in our room the next business day after filing the work order, but here Etown’s personal Mr. Fix-It was, standing in my doorway in his tattooed, one earring-ed glory. I was in pajamas and still hadn’t gotten out of bed when he walked in, but he immediately showed me how to install and fix the curtain rod in a grandfatherly way that honestly made me smile and remember why I picked Etown. If the Environmental Services staff have to go around fixing all of the broken stuff on campus in the wake of Natty Light fueled parties and the general indifference of college students, this has to be a great place, right?
We spent at least 20 minutes after having the curtain rod installed talking about the previous residents in the two neighboring triples I and a group of my friends live in. In excruciating detail, he described some of the former inhabitants of my room. After being sufficiently creeped out, we moved on to the topic of really gross, unorganized rooms. Did you know that maintenance can refuse to enter your room if it’s a dump? Yeah, me neither until this conversation.
Fast forward to last weekend when in my groggy state of Sunday morning, I pulled on the aforementioned big pull down shade … and proceeded to rip it off the window. Oops. Two work orders in as many weeks? Good. I’m glad. I couldn’t help but think that this guy would think I was the biggest ditz ever, especially when it came to window coverings.
Another day, another nap, another knock on the door. My roommate Wendy and I sleepily looked at each other and concluded that it must be maintenance again. Being a champ, she got up and let the same man in, this time toting a ten-foot ladder and some power tools. Jokingly, he questioned my sleep schedule and asked why I nap so much/if I had a problem. Oh, and why I really suck with windows too.
He worked his magic and got the shade attached to the wooden bar it was on, and I hopped up on my lofted bed to put the shade back up. After some struggling, he realized there was no way uncoordinated, little me could do it myself. He proceeded to take his shoes off and hop up onto my bed. I feel like any other person would tell me I would have to move my bed, do this and that, then submit another work order. Nope. I turned around and looked at my roommate in amazement. He and I then worked together to make tension on the pulley system, I think.
After the shade was fixed, he started to tell us a little bit about his day and the other things he had to do, etc. We started talking about commuting to work in the wake of the snowy, icy mix that had plagued the area that day and what a joke certain local roads are when it snows, the usual conversation topics. This lasted for about ten minutes, and after he left Wendy and I talked about how just plain nice he was.
I have no idea what this man’s name is, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know mine. All he knows is that I love to sleep, have zero hand-eye coordination, and am really bad with anything mechanical. I learned a lot more through this experience though, and that’s the stereotypical “don’t judge a book by its cover.” I was expecting him to be gruff and very to the point, but instead I met a kind, helpful man with a ton of hilarious stories about Etown students and staff, past and present. Maybe I’ll have to go break some more stuff …