There is no special purgatory to compare with waiting for repairmen to come to your home. You cannot under any circumstance leave, remember it has taken days of telephone desperation to get them coming at all.

You dare not start a project. It is realistically probable that your fingers will freeze to a sewing needle when they disconnect the natural gas line.

Let's face it, even going to the bathroom is risky...what if they think no one is home when you don't answer the door quickly enough?

In all the great trials and struggles of life this falls far short of important, noteworthy, or even memorable (at my age.) But just for today, I feel stuck, and thank God for the great vast emptiness of cyberspace where I can freely fling my angst.