Great Is Thy Faithfulness

The sermon last Sunday was on Gideon. I am feeling a bit like that particular Bible character these days. God keeps proving faithful, and I keep going around with this knot in my stomach like maybe he won’t the next time. “No, but could you just make the fleece wet . . . ?” I think I am so stupid and keep making such a mess of things that even God won’t be able fix it this time. Oh me of little faith.

This time, it started with the washing machine. It broke on a Friday after 5 p.m., which around here means no hope of reaching any repair people until Monday after 9. So on Monday at 9, I did what any homeowner would do and called the service number on the machine. The lady on the other end nicely reminded me that I am no longer a homeowner, and if I wanted my washer fixed, she had to deal with the landlord. Here in Geneva, one does not deal directly with the owner of one’s rental. Instead, one goes through an intermediary known as a regie. So I emailed our regie, only to receive the all-too-ubiquitous automatic out-of-office response. Was I supposed to let the dirty clothes pile up for a week while Valerie sunned herself in the Canary Islands? Well, no, she had left the email of a compatriot, Jacques, whom I could contact in an emergency. That gave me a moment of pause, until I decided that 3 kids + 4 sports - any desire to familiarize myself with the genevois laundromat system = EMERGENCY. I emailed Jacques, who promptly replied that he would send a “bon de travail” either to or for me (in French, as in English, the indirect pronoun can be the same).I looked up the term, discovered that it means “work order,” and paused again. Was he sending the work order for me to a company who would then appear at my door at some unspecified date? Or was the work order coming to me, and then I would . . . do what? Fix the washer myself? I emailed my friend Carol, who, having lived in French-speaking countries for seven years, often knows the answer to these kinds of questions. She said (1) the work order would go both to me and the company, probably by mail; (2) then I would have to set up the appointment; and (3) this whole process could take a long time, and I needed to throw a fit in order to get action. I decided to begin with a very small sniffle, and sent a deferential email to Jacques asking how long this whole bon de travail business was likely to take, because I have three children and, after all, we already established that this is an emergency. Jacques, whom I was liking better with every email, sent the work order as an attachment with the words “TRÈS URGENTE” on the bottom. I don’t know if he was laughing in his sleeve or not, but it got the job done. When I called Proménagér, the lady said she’d send someone over in the morning. She also mentioned that the parts for our refrigerator, which the same company had been working on fixing for about a month, were finally in.

When the repair man showed up, he said he was there for the refrigerator. I said great, thanks, but what I really want fixed is the washer. He seemed confused, but when I showed him the all-powerful bon de travail, he said he’d take a look. To shorten the story, his diagnosis was grim. Madame, he said, I cannot fix it. You need a new washer. By this time, of course, what with all the emailing and calling and fixing of refrigerators, it was Thursday morning and my washer had been broken for more than a week. Despite a few trips to the laundry rooms of understanding friends, the piles were beginning to mount, and I was beginning to hear things like, “Mom, where is my P.E. shirt?” and “Mom, I have no clean socks.” 

So, again reverting to my American do-it-yourself spirit, I called Conforama and ordered a washing machine. After all, that’s what homeowners do when the repair man says they need a new washer. Ah, but madame, you forget that you are not a homeowner, and you have no control over the destiny of your laundry. This is what Jacques informed me when I emailed him to say what I had done. Actually, what he said was, “You aren’t allowed to order a washing machine.” Well, darn. I just did. Now what will I do with this 700 chf piece of equipment due to arrive at my house? If it had been Wal-Mart where I bought the washer, of course, I would just call and cancel the order. In fact, if I had bought the washer at another store five years previously, Wal-Mart would still probably take it back. This, however, was not Wal-Mart, but Conforama, a Swiss appliance chain. How gracious would they be? How expensive a hole had I dug this time? This would not have been such a big deal if I didn’t find myself in situations like it so often. The Swiss Athletics Championships. Climbing a mountain, the angry family in tow. Lost in Paris. In a coffee shop sitting across from an elderly woman who speaks no English. 

The Conforama website contains the comforting words, “satisfied or your money back.” Buoyed by that hope, I called the store. Sure, I could cancel the order, but I had to do it at the store, not online or by phone. By this time in was Saturday, and my forbearing husband offered to come with me on this quick errand.  Armed with my printout of the sale, we approached the customer service desk, waited in line, and were told that, actually, we needed to be in the other customer service line, just around the corner. We followed the people who had been waiting in front of us (at least we weren’t the only clueless ones). At the next desk, the clerk helpfully created a receipt, which we were to take, he explained, into the store, to the welcome desk. At the welcome test, we were told, naturally, that we were going to have to take our documents to the other welcome desk. Clearly, this was all part of a plan to frustrate people into keeping their unwanted merchandise. My hypothesis was confirmed when we arrived at the other welcome desk and found no one there to welcome us. Eventually, a woman showed up and told us we could only get store credit. Emboldened by impatience, guilt, and absolutely no desire to spend 700 chf on anything else in the store, I told her we didn’t want store credit, and that the website had said money back . . . money. She nodded, seemed unperturbed, and said we’d have to talk to Michelle, who would be over by the televisions. She then uttered, in English, the words, “no hair.” The picture that leaped into my mind -- of a tall, slender, bald woman with several tattoos and piercings -- was not what we saw by the televisions. This was, of course, because it was bald Michel whom we sought, a stocky man with a white beard and no hair on top. I have got to stop thinking like an American.

“We don’t want store credit. We want money,” I told Michel, regretting my inability to phrase this request in a more elegant and persuasive fashion. I was anticipating an argument, but he nodded, signed the receipt, and handed it back. Sure that our ease in accomplishing this mission meant we had actually failed, we headed next to the cash register, with Eric planning all the way the big TV he would buy with the store credit, since we clearly were not getting our money back. I was paying attention to my stomach, which had begun its familiar churning about the time we reached the second welcome desk. At the register, however, the cashier looked at the document and opened the drawer to give us -- not store credit or even money back on our credit card -- but 700 chf in cash. 

A few weeks ago, the pastor said that God loves seeing us get ourselves into trouble because he loves to get us out of it in surprising ways. The worse trouble, the more fun it is to rescue us. Of course, a broken washer or even foolishly wasting several hundred franks hardly rank as serious trouble. But still. They are poor things, but mine own. 

My authorized washer from the regie is supposed to come tomorrow . . . sometime. The piles are getting pretty high. When I think of all the folding to come . . . that is, if the machine gets here . . . and when I wonder what it will cost and who will pay for it, I feel that sickish feeling in my stomach. 

"Come on, God, now if you could just have the ground be wet . . . .”

I’m still waiting for the moment when we conquer the Midianites with nothing but a flashlight and a canning jar. 

“Greetings, mighty man of valor.” Ha, ha.

But it’s only a farce if you don’t know how the story ends.

The alien with the defunct washer on what I hope will be the washer's last night at home.