this old house...

Last night when I returned home from an evening of shopping and going to the movies with Whitney, I came home to a house with NO hot water. Of course I didn't realize this when I walked in the door. I was only concerned with getting inside and away from the cold, wet, nasty conditions I had been wading through all night. The whole drive home I sat in my car with a damp coat on me, dreaming of the hot bath that would warm me right up and rev start my sleep cycle from the relaxation it would provide. But what do I come home to...no...hot...water! When you live in an older house, these kinds of problems creep up on you at moments you would not expect. At this exact moment I felt the emotion I can only compare to this...


Ralphie's dad battled on and on with the furnace in their basement in the classic tale of A Christmas Story. I find these scenes to be extra funny now that I own a home of my own, and have too reacted this way to a malfunction within my home. This is the initial reaction of a homeowner when something unexpectedly goes wrong. You flip out! Anger creeps up from deep down inside you and it's like you can't even attempt to fix the thing until you yell at! (I know, like that's going to do any good - but it really makes you feel better and like you are accomplishing things) The big problem about trying to fix something when you are going through this initial anger is that you are not at your most graceful. Your movements are quick, swift, and unpredictable. Recipe for adding to the already disaster. I was just bounding around about as graceful as gazelle when I tried to solve the crime that is having no hot water. I went down to the basement and tried to discover what was taking away my precious hot water. I'll tell you what I did find - lots of COLD water...on the floor. Yeah, I didn't wear shoes down there. That would've made sense, and I was in the mad as hell stage of home repair. This only added fuel to my fire. I yelled at the water on the floor. "Why are you in my basement?! You are ruining my night, and totally messing up my purple socks! Now how am I supposed to get to the fuse box now! Can one thing go right tonight, I ask you?!" You know, things like that. Of course I did not solve the problem then. You never solve the problem at this stage. Next we move on to the next stage of home repair that I describe like this...


Remember in Money Pit, when Tom Hanks filled the tub with hot water and it fell right through all the way to the ground floor? What did he do next? LAUGH! He sat back and just laughed - almost crazily. This is when you realize the whole situation is just kind of funny. You think back to when you were yelling hysterically about it, and just have to laugh at yourself. I think this is the moment when I say to myself - ok there is nothing I can do to change the fact that it has happened, so why I am making myself crazy? I'm going to laugh at how inconvenient and yet ironic it is that I can't get any hot water in this house, when there is an abundance of cold water falling from the sky outside, and pooling in the floor of my basement. I chose crazy laughter over crazy screaming. Let's just sit back and not make the vein on my forehead pulse out. Tomorrow is another day. And with a clear mind I will come up with an answer to my problem. And I did. I solved it just fine. And then I called dad to check and make sure I did it right :) Aren't dads just the best!