"Is it time yet?"
"Oh yes, it's already begun."
"Does he know?"
"Not yet, but he will, and it will bring great despair!"
Yes, these are the voices of the electronic and motorized devices in my life. These are the sinister whispers of my arch nemeses. These are the things I need, but the things that rebel and break down. At least once a year, they hold a great meeting, and lots are drawn. Thus begins the conspiracy dance of the inanimate. It's really not much of a dance really. I've seen it, they just kind of stand around, cuz…well…they're inanimate.
It's the time when certain volunteers become even more inanimate, they turn broken--en masse. A giant leap of faith into the trashcan of despair, never to be heard from again. Useful things, big and small, turn useless. The cost of this dance can range anywhere from one-hundred to a few thousand dollars. This year? I think we're looking at an interesting split.
Let me explain.
I woke up yesterday, opened my freezer and noticed that my ice maker no longer formed cubes, but sheets of ice. Although it's more aesthetically pleasing, it's not nearly as useful. I complimented it's artistic intent, then researched into how to return it to a state of conformity. The answer: replace it. There's a leak between the maker and the water source. According to a few things I read, my model was prone to this, and I was lucky it lasted as long as it did. Yeah, lucky it outlived the manufacturer warranty…
It'll cost $100 bucks to replace, but it's just an icemaker. I think I can turn off the water source, and buy a few trays for less than a buck. Sure I risk carpal tunnel by emptying said trays, but I think I'm capable.
Next issue came during my work out. My iPod stopped playing.
"What the hell?"
Continuing my jog, I fumble for the controls, trying to view the display upside down through sweat goggles.
Beep beep The treadmill lets me know we're adding a degree of difficulty and changing speed.
The iPod says that it's played all the songs on the list. That's It? I can deal with this. It takes all my coordination, but I master the little dial, and reset the playlist.
Beep beep. Treadmill reminds me we'll be changing difficulty again.
It stops.
It says there are seven minutes left, but it's taking a break.
That is a change...
None of the controls work. I press everything, it stares at me while beeping "Bad touch! Bad touch!"
The display is still on; that's a plus. At least there's a pulse. Except now the platform won't lower. And if it doesn't lower, I can't fold the treadmill up. This is unimportant, only as long as I'm satisfied staying in the room with the treadmill: it blocks the door.
Awesome!
I wait a few minutes, wafting the aroma of my sweat, while it considers the err of its ways. After 10 minutes, it still hasn't repented. I begin a new tactic involving everything from a manual reset, to repeated kicking. Finally, I solve the puzzle, but like the Rubik's Cube, I have no idea how. All I know, is the platform hums raises, then sighs and lowers. It's flat. I can fold it up.
Now I'm mixed on this turn of events. It's a new treadmill, but I need to buy another one anyway. My wife is taking it with her. This also offers me a moral dilemma: do I tell her, or do I let her figure it out herself. For now I've opted to leave this for her discovery. It may just be a fluke thing. Besides, I don't really want to have the "You broke my treadmill on purpose" fight right now.
Shaking my head, I head back to the shower, start the water, and brush my teeth. When I'm done, I reach in to test the water temp: cold.
That's odd.
I crank up the hot water a bit, and wait: cold.
That's odd.
I crank it all the way up, knowing exactly what I'll find: cold.
Of course.
I finish my cold shower. I needed one anyway, Wednesday's arm touch isn't going nearly as far as I'd hoped. Cold shower is a blessing.
The hot water heater is in the garage. The pilot is out. Reading the hieroglyphics embossed into the heaters side, I work through how to remedy the problem. I don't do these things often. I'm a writer not a handyman.
I stick the match into the pilot. The match goes out.
Strike match, repeat.
Twice.
This time I look at the match: it's wet. The hot water heater is leaking. Not a lot, there's too much sludge in the bottom for that, but it is leaking enough, and in just the right place to put out the match…and the pilot light.
Sigh.
MyWife gets home as I walk back into the house with the flashlight and a box of matches.
"Did you just finish your workout?" She's noticed I'm sweating from the hot garage. It seems she's missed the more important clues. That not unusual.
"No…" I tell her the story of the bad heater as she's getting changed. It's Thursday, we go out for dinner on Thursdays. Tonight we decide on Mexican food.
I'm a little leery about driving my car on the day of the inanimate dance, but she won't drive her car to do our functions. That's okay, I make sure all money for gas and repairs comes out of our account. Passive aggressive behavior at it's finest.
On the way to the restaurant, I bask in my pity.
"I think when we get home I'm going to grab a long knife and sit in the bathtub."
Not turning from the passanger window she says, "Well you know there's not going to be any warm water for that."
"Thanks hon, You're always the pragmatist."
"Hon" that's the word we now use for each other. It means "no longer the pookie."
So today I'm going out to buy a new water heater. She wasn't excited to find out I was using savings money for that since she won't be able to take advantage of the new heater. But as I explained it, "You received the full benefit of the old heater. I could have gotten more life out of it if you weren't here." Ok, I didn't say the last sentence, but it was implied. She said we'd "negotiate" it out of the filing fees.
"Ok" I smiled. I think I'll let her find out about the treadmill on her own.
4 comments:
When it rains, it pours.
yes indeed...like water from my water heater. ;)
***New update...$700 later I'll have a new one installed on Monday. Most of the cost, installation, removal and city code licensing fees.
So I guess that's more than water I see pouring away huh?
Yeah...so how did you come to the conclusion you needed to replace it? It couldn't be repaired? If it's energy efficient, it could over time pay for itself I suppose. I about had a heart attack when I saw the rating on the one that was installed in the NEW house we just moved into. You know how they have a range from left to right, well mine was as far as you can get for "Uses most energy." Our builder wouldn't replace it either.
Yeah, builders cut corners where ever they can. Water heaters are one of those things that most people don't look at, and they can buy in bulk cheap.
When we moved into the house, the inspector told us that we would have to replace the thing within 2 years, it had about outlived it's usefulness.
Last year I had to replace the hot water hose running from the heater, because there it had sprung a leak. There was steam and water all over our garage. I tried draining it then, (because your supposed to do that once a year or so, and our water is very hard) but the crap in the bottom had filled up past the drain valve. As best I could tell (Because once again Rob is not equal to handyman) the tank was more than half filled, which meant I was only getting about half a tank of hot water. Plus it kept trying to heat the water because we were constantly using it. So I might as well have had no energy rating at all.
I weighted these facts against how much it would cost for somebody to come to my house, and what where the chances he'd tell me the same thing. In this case, the value just seemed to be to buy an new one. I'm sure MyWife disagrees, but that's another story.
As far as the energy rating: I paid an extra $25 bucks to get I decent one. The rating is 62, but I forget where that falls on the slider scale. I'll report in Monday. ;)
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