5 O’clock Charlie

There’s an episode of the old M*A*S*H TV show where an inept North Korean pilot regularly drops a bomb near the army hospital.

The doctors and nurses dubbed the guy “Five O’clock Charley” because he arrives every day at the same time.

The pilot, described as a “washout from Kamikaze school,” never hits his intended target, an ammo dump, and his plane makes such a racket that everyone knows he’s coming.

People start making bets on how far away from the target Charley's bomb will land. Only Frank Burns and Margaret think he’s a threat and they bug Henry, the C.O., to get an anti-aircraft gun.

The episode was aired on Sept. 22, 1973, and I started thinking about it this week when the air conditioner in my kitchen started making godawful noise.

I tried denial, telling myself that there was nothing unusual with the clanging and banging coming out the thing, but my logical side was telling me there was something very bad going on.

I had bought two air conditions when I first moved into my apartment over 10 years ago. Yeah, they’re old, but I was hoping to get a few more summers out of them. But that was not to be.

To make matters worse, the ceiling fan in my kitchen died on me, which I didn’t think was possible. Ceiling fans aren’t supposed to break down. They just keep going for as long as you need them.

Fan Dancer

I hardly use the thing and when I do it’s never for very long. Ceiling fans inevitablly make me think of Sydney Greenstreet sitting in a wicker chair and wearing a fez. I’ll bet this never happened to him.

And all this was going on in the middle of a heat wave, no less, so my third-floor walkup was stifling.

On Friday I was a virtual prisoner in my bedroom where the only working air conditioner in my home is located.

I wasn’t anxious to shell out of a new machine, so I thought I’d get my new handyman Michel to come by--for the second time in less than a week--and see if he could take a look at the air conditioner while was repairing the ceiling fan.

And on Friday afternoon, Michel gave me the bad news: both the fan and the air conditioner were done for.

This blows, but not in a good way. Counting my busted vacuum cleaner, I’ve had three appliances crap out on me in less than two months.

My landlady will have to take care of the fan, while I ordered up a new air conditioner from Amazon.

Aside from the obvious financial hit, I’m trying not to acquire any more stuff in case I want to move, since I like to travel light as possible.

Plus, as with any major purchase, I get all twisted that I’m going to the make the “wrong decision” and, so I start to procrastinate.

That didn’t last too longer. On Saturday, after sweltering in Shore Road Park for a few hours, I ordered a new air conditioner on Amazon. There’s no “toughing out” a heat wave. Not if you want to live to see autumn. As I recall, at the end of the Five O’clock Charlie episode, Frank and his men into firing directly the gun and the dump and blow it to bits.

The air conditioner arrives the tomorrow. I think I'll get Michel to help me put it in.