Soapbox

They say that everything happens for a reason, and I suppose the reason here is that I hadn’t vacuumed cobwebs in the basement for far too long.

I sat on the basement steps yesterday afternoon talking to Steve about the plan for the evening (his final dress rehearsal, our International night at Katie’s school) and said,
"And by the way- what’s that trickling sound?"
"Huh? " said Steve, engrossed in his computer game.
"How long has it been going on?"
"What?"

Oh please. He doesn’t listen to me- why would he listen to trickling sounds?

Of course it was the water heater, peeing merrily on the floor. I quickly called Sears because the darn thing is under a maintenance agreement, and after a bit of hassle (which at one point involved me transferred to the credit department by mistake) was connected with a "water heater expert" who told me that in order to assure that it wasn’t "condensation run-off caused by thermal expansion" I needed to turn the gas dial to "pilot" which would shut off the burner, and see if the water had stopped in 45 minutes.

"And yet" I said as I crouched in the basement in my skirt and blouse, "I hear something that sounds like the burner is still on."
"Huh- that’s weird." was the expert opinion. "Take the cover off the bottom and look to see if the flame is on."
"Ummm, mine won’t come off" I reported.
She told me to just pull it off.
"I am! The top seems to be attached to something. How hard can I yank on it?"
"Huh- that’s weird" (Apparently this is "expert lingo" for "you’re screwed, babe". )  "Well here’s my direct number- call me in 45 minutes and tell me if it’s still leaking."
"Wait- I’m supposed to just leave this peeing all over my basement? Should I shut off the water? I have to leave for the evening in 10 minutes!"
"Oh, I’ll be here until 10:00" my expert assured me, as if that would keep the water from running under the wall joist and under the linoleum in the basement bathroom.
So I did the thing I should have done first: I called Ted.
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March 2003

So I’ve got this kid…

…and he told me last night, “In town meeting today, I took your advice.”

“Which was…?”

“Well I stood up and said, ‘Yes hello- here I am on St. Patrick’s day and I”m deliberately not wearing green. And the reason is that when you’re Irish, you don’t need to wear green! It’s only the pseudo -Irish, you wanna-be’s out there, who have to wear green on St. Patrick’s Day. So there you are’ “And it worked!” he added. “I didn’t get pinched any more after that!”

“Great!” I said.

“Of course, the fact that I also threatened any fake Irish who pinched me with a painful and lingering death may have helped as well.”

That’s my boy. I never mentioned the painful death part, but hey, whatever works for you, kid.