So our hot water heater was broken all last week, and by broken I mean that it went to the big utility closet in the sky.
Some of the things you can’t do without hot water:
- Bathe
- Use the dishwasher
These two things are integral to the whole Punchdrunk operation, as I imagine they are in your household, as well.
There was enough hot water left in the leaking tank for the kids to have a bath on Monday night, but washing the dinner dishes was out the window. I left them for Tuesday, when we would (presumably) have a new hot water heater.
Not so.
Apparently the guy who built our house installed the water heater first, and then came the studs and the drywall and electronic wiring and whatnot, so that we couldn’t get the water heater out without ripping it through the walls. So while all the parties involved retired to their separate corners to figure out what to do next, Tuesday came and went, and then Wednesday.
I decided to make the best of it, boiling water on the stove to wash dishes, and yet more water for the kids’ baths, which I administered in the sink.
I thought that Kai would think this was fun. I often come upstairs to find that he’s shed his clothing and climbed into the sink to pay in the water. I’m serious. Sometimes you can’t get him out of there. He likes to fill the bathroom sinks, too, and soak his feet like Alice of Mel’s Diner fame.
So, when I called him for his bath and proudly showed him what was about to happen, I was totally surprised when he pitched a fit.
“No!” he shouted. “I want rectangle! Rectangle bath.”
The rectangle bath? You mean the bathtub?
“Downstairs!”
Right.
Kai and I have a battle every night about bathtime.
Me: Kai, it’s time to go downstairs for your bath.
Kai: No. Time for TV/eating/play trains/go to the toy store.
The fight escalates from there, often with tears (sometimes his, sometimes mine).
“Kai, you love the sink,” I reminded him, picking him up and plopping him in. He was conveniently already naked.
Later, of course, I couldn’t get him out.
“It’s time to come out,” I said.
“No,” he replied. “It’s time for sink.”
:::
“You’re a pioneer woman,” my friend Brent said, of my primitive water set-up.
He didn’t know the half of it, because the day after we lost the water heater, the microwave broke.
It took me a while to figure it out, because it went through the motions of cooking. The light came on, it made noise, it beeped when it was done.
But then I’d take out the food, sit down to eat, take a bite and realize my food was still ice cold. Or the popcorn wouldn’t have popped. Of course, I thought that it was a dud bag, but then we had three dud bags and reality set in and I started laughing. Insane laughter, like from an evil clown.
I called the store where we’d bought it to schedule a repair.
“What’s wrong with it?” the girl asked on the other end of the line.
“It goes through the motions, but I don’t think its heart is really into it,” I said.
“What?” she asked.
“It doesn’t make food hot,” I said.
I was delighted to be informed that the warranty had run out (of course), and so this microwave that I purchased in 2009 is just a giant paperweight until the guy comes out to repair this piece of crap on my dime. FYI that’s a GE Profile, in case any of you are currently shopping around.
:::
On Wednesday night, I came home from my guitar lesson to find that Scott had boiled another pot of water.
“You washed more dishes?” I asked.
“I rewashed them,” he replied.
“You didn’t like the job I did?” I asked.
“They weren’t really clean,” he replied.
This is the conversation that the pioneers must have had before the dishwasher was invented and we could argue over how to load it.
:::
The following morning, I put in a load of laundry and the washer stopped mid-cycle and flashed the code “HF.”
A little Googling turned up suggestions of worn out tubing and pressure valves, I held out hope that this was somehow related to the fact that we’ve turned off our hot water, even though I washed the clothes in cold.
Because if you have no hot water, no microwave and no washer, you’re really just living in a cave.
:::
On Thursday, amid much banging of pipes and revealing of butt cracks, our new hot water heater was delivered with a minimum of wall ripping and a maximizing of our American Express.
Funny, it doesn't look like it would cost thousands of dollars.
I took a nice, hot shower, which was lovely, but also vaguely disappointing because after all that trouble and expense, all that came out of the tap was plain old hot water and not champagne or gold dubloons.
I think there's a lesson here along the lines of being grateful for what you have, because you never know when something you take for granted is going to be gone and you’d pay anything to get it back, something you mean most sincerely until you get the bill.
:::
At the kids’ bath time, I proudly informed Kai that we could once again have a rectangle bath.
“No!” he wailed.
“Come on! It’s bath time,” I said. “Rectangle bath.”
I chivvied him toward the stairs.
“No rectangle bath,” he said, digging in his heels. “Sink!”
Right.
At least I didn’t have to boil any water.
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Posted by: True Religion outlet | 11/15/2011 at 08:37 PM