The first cold night of the year arrives on a Tuesday in October. By six in the morning, thermostats all over town are asking furnaces to do something they haven't done since April. Some of those furnaces won't start.
At a family-run heating and cooling compa
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At 9:40 on a Tuesday night, a homeowner stands in a utility room with a flashlight and an inch of water on the floor. She does not type the name of a plumbing company. She types what she sees: "water heater leaking from bottom," and then, a minute later, "wate
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The front desk phone at a small regional art museum rings on a Tuesday morning. The caller has three oil paintings that belonged to her late father and wants to know what the gallery would pay for them. The visitor services coordinator explains, kindly, that t
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It is 5:20 on a Thursday at a neighborhood restaurant with a small dining room and a private room upstairs. The host is seating a two-top while a party of six waits by the door. The general manager is in the walk-in counting fish for the weekend. The chef-owne
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