The official list of Things I Am Good At Doing is fairly small. I can make a mean mixtape. I can talk your ear off about pop culture endlessly, whether you want me to or not. My editor can attest that I'm highly skilled at submitting a column longer than it should be every week. I'm gifted at stammering, not making eye contact, and running late to most occasions. That's my principal skill sets right there.
As for Things I'm Bad At Doing? Well, that list comprises pretty much everything else in life. But there's little on Earth I am worse at doing than home repairs. I am, perhaps, the least handy man on Earth. So when I woke up last Sunday to discover no hot water in my house, all I could do was scratch my head.
I'm fully aware there's a machine in my basement that takes cold water and makes it hot. I couldn't tell you how it works, but I know it's down there. But on Sunday, it wasn't as if cold water was coming out instead. No, when I switched the faucet to hot, NO water came out whatsoever anywhere in the house. The hot water heater was warm to the touch. It was doing its job. The water, however, was clearly on holiday.
Another Thing I'm Bad At Doing is taking cold showers. I steadfastly believe that showers should have a water temperature juuuust shy of skin-melting. I once dated a girl who took cold showers by choice. I'm still not entirely certain that she isn't a sociopath. Of course, I discovered this nifty quirk during an ill-fated attempt at spontaneous sexiness, when I thought I'd try to sneak in the shower with her all romantic-like. Instead, I ended up shrieking like a little girl and fleeing to the nearest towel yelling, "COLD! COLD! COLD!" Let's just add "spontaneous sexiness" to the Things I'm Bad At list.
I had no idea what to do. Generally, when something's not working, my first instinct is to look for something broken. My second gut instinct is to poke it with a stick. Nothing seemed broken and I was fresh out of sticks. If the hot water wasn't coming out of the faucets, WHERE WAS IT GOING? I carefully perused the whole house and thankfully found none of it to be underwater. Beyond that, I was stumped.
I needed an expert. Good thing I have one on retainer. His name is Dad.
My father built the home I grew up in from the ground up. When I bought this house, he finished my basement "for fun." He's a home improvement superstar and doesn't seem to mind that he raised a son who gets nauseous on the bottom rung of a ladder. I immediately called him for advice. "My advice," he replied, "is to sit tight. I'm on my way."
An hour later, Dad was up to save the day. If anyone could fix the situation, it was him. I watched as he confidently checked out the bathroom, the basement, the bathroom again, and the basement a second time. Eventually he came upstairs, looked me square in the eye, and said -- well, I can't tell you what he said, but I reckon you can guess how many letters it was. Not good.
After several phone calls, we landed on a plumber willing to give up his Sunday to stop by. For what it's worth, the guy was really nice and professional, and I know this because he stopped to put on little booties before walking across my carpet as if it were something far nicer than a destination for cat vomit.
Plumber Guy wasn't as stumped as we were. He shut off the water, cut into the intake pipe, and ran a long pliable pipe cleaner down the line. In other words, he took a look at the problem -- and then proceeded to poke it with a stick. Perhaps my home improvement instincts aren't as terrible as I previously thought. It only took seconds before the pipe cleaner hit something that fell to the bottom of the water heater tank with a noticable "clank." Immediately, water started flowing again. A little soldering with a pocket blowtorch and I was back in business.
How LONG I'll be enjoying warm water remains up in the air. The hunk of ick that was clogging my line (which I am now simply referring to as "a piece of Rock Island goodness") is now enjoying a warm soak at the bottom of my hot water heater, and there's always a chance it'll get swept up in the outflow and get stuck someplace else. The only recourse other than hope is a new water heater, which, after hearing the cost of purchase and installation, I can only presume is made of solid gold with a lovely diamond inlay. I'll take my chances for now.
But I DID learn one fun thing this weekend: I can now add "EMPTYING ONE'S BANK ACCOUNT WITH AN EMERGENCY WEEKEND PLUMBER CALL" to the list of Things I'm Good At. It turns out I'm fairly skilled at handing all my money to strangers. In the meantime, if anyone needs me, I'm off to the showers.
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