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You realised this moment was coming, right? You sensed it when you made the call in the first place, as you strove valiantly to keep the tremor out of your voice despite emitting a slight whiff of eau de mouth-breathing lunatic on the phone.

You knew it when you told work you’d be late because you had to call in the professionals after your attempt to fix the problem yourself ended with you short-circuiting your house. Also, your neighbours’ houses. And also (possibly) their neighbours’ houses. (Although you blame Bob from the Central Coast for that. His DIY videos on YouTube made it seem so easy for a home handyman to undertake building repairs with no qualifications other than a recently ­unearthed toolbelt and a can-do attitude.)

For a hot second, you thought everything would be OK. You spoke to someone who pledged to have an actual professional there between 7am and midday the next day (you fought the urge to retaliate for the lack of specificity by listing your address as “somewhere between Sydney and Perth”). You’ve been burned by tradie o’clock before, so you made the nice-but-slightly-startled lady on the phone swear she was telling the truth when she said someone would arrive on schedule.

Then you asked if she’d be prepared to sign (in blood, preferably) a statutory declaration attesting to that promise (hence the whole eau de mouth-breathing lunatic thing) and when she laughed and said that........

© Brisbane Times