Month: May 2018

The faucet in my daughter’s bathroom broke.  It started as a slow drip and gradually picked up momentum until the water was running at full speed with no apparent way to shut it off.  I closed the water valve under the sink as a temporary measure, then promised my daughter that I would replace the faucet as soon as possible.

That was six months ago.

I will admit that I am not the handiest guy on the block.  I am generally about as useful around the house as a houseplant with emotional issues.  When it comes to home improvement and do-it-yourself repair projects, I am a master at watching others do them on television, but as far as going hands on in my own home, not so much.  “Fixing” a problem, in my experience, involves futzing with something until I make it worse, calling a friend for advice, then proceeding to cause so much damage that I am forced to hire someone to replace whatever it was that I was originally trying to repair.

And yes, futzing is a real word.   Feel free to look it up if you’re bored.

Because of my very long string of handyman failures, I have adopted the strategy of ignoring small problems and hoping that they will go away on their own.  Granted, this is a strategy that rarely pays off.

By the fourth month of pretending there was no sink in my daughter’s bathroom, the whole situation was already beginning to get embarrassing.  My daughter hung up a sign over the faucet stating, “Out of Order, Use Other Sink,” as if the bathroom was located in a bus terminal somewhere.  Friends and family had noticed the ongoing issue and started offering to come over and help me fix the faucet.  They were just being nice, but I couldn’t help seeing it as a reminder of my own ineptitude.  I was being backed into a corner and forced to take action.

Finally, there was only one thing left for me to do.

Sell the house.

My wife quickly said no to that idea, and suggested I call a plumber or fix it myself but to stop acting like a baby.  Actually, her comments weren’t quite that nice.  Her exact words involved some harsher language and the implication that I might be a bit confused as to my actual gender.

Bolstered by my wife’s motivational diatribe, I went to the hardware store, bought a new faucet, and prepared for battle.

At home I opened the box the faucet came in and pulled out the directions.  Step one stated that I would need an adjustable crescent wrench and a pair of safety goggles before getting started.  As I did not see any parts of the faucet that looked like they would jump out and poke me in the eye, I grabbed a wrench but opted to skip the glasses.

I crawled under the sink and began uncoupling the old faucet from the water pipes.  A thick brown sludge was released from where it had stagnated over the past half year and it immediately splashed down directly into my face.

The glasses suddenly made a little more sense.

Figuring that the worst was already behind me, I powered on, loosening nuts and bolts, and removing pieces of pipe.   More sludge was released, and it seemed like every bit of it found its way into my eyes.  Nearly blind, and dry heaving just a little bit, I placed the wrench around the last nut holding the old faucet in place.  It was rusted to the bolt, so I put some effort into breaking it loose.  The wrench slipped, and I raked my knuckles against an assortment of sharp edges under the sink.  Metal and porcelain vied with each other to see which could take more skin off the back of my hand.  I could not determine a winner as both did an admirable job.

My blood began to mix with the puddle of muck I was lying in, and I wondered briefly who the first person would be to discover my body if I died right there in the bathroom.  And would anyone be at all surprised by the manner of my death?

Battered, but still not deterred, I finally wrested the nut free, crawled out from under the sink and ripped the old faucet from its mounting.  I tossed the hardware over my shoulder in triumph, then made a mental note to myself to buy some sheetrock putty to repair the hole in the wall I had just made.

The new faucet went in much easier than the old one had come out.  When all the pipes and water lines were reconnected, I re-opened the water valve that had been off for the last six months and was elated to see that the faucet did not leak so much as one drop.

The deluge of water now shooting across my feet was coming from somewhere else.

I hastily turned the water off and glanced around at the carnage.  Between the water, the blood, sink parts and random damage in my immediate vicinity, I looked like I was the center piece of a rather nasty crime scene.  I wasn’t sure if I should call a plumber, or a cop.

It took another fifteen minutes of searching to find the cause of the new leak.  The connection between the hot water line and the faucet was not securely attached and had uncoupled under the pressure of the water flowing through.  I reattached them and once more turned on the water.

Everything held, and everything worked.

I ran to the living room and called for my wife to come see what I had done.  She followed me into the bathroom and paused, staring at the floor.  I turned the faucet on and off in demonstration of my accomplishment.

“What do you think?” I asked her, proudly, still turning the water rapidly off and on.

My wife nodded slowly, then said, “I need to take a walk.”

I heard the front door open and slam shut.  I think she was a little bit overwhelmed at the great job I had done.  She probably wanted to go visit one of the neighbors and brag about her husband.

Who can blame her?

We are repainting the house next week.  And by “we,” I mean a professional painter has been hired to paint the house and I will be standing outside asking questions and offering advice while pretending that I am actually helping the process along, rather than actively hampering it.

The decision to paint the house was an easy one.  Selecting what colors to use was significantly harder.  For some reason, my wife and I seem completely unable to come to a consensus.  Initially, we both just started suggesting colors that we liked.  We quickly discovered that we have drastically different ideas of what appropriate colors for a house should be.  My wife suggested yellow or green.  I advised that I would rather the house not look like it belonged in a row of buildings in a Norwegian fishing village.  As an alternative, I suggested red.  My wife agreed that red is a lovely color – if you are a cow – but she herself was not prepared to live in a barn for the next ten years.

Stalemate.

After much discussion, we found that there were only two things that we agreed on.  One, we both did not want a color that was so bland and neutral that birds would fly into the sides of the house because they didn’t notice that it was in the way.  And, two, we did not want something so bright and offensive to the eyes that the neighbors would wander into the yard because they thought the circus had just come to town.  That wasn’t much to work with, but at least it was a starting point.

We ended up going to a paint store to browse and do some brainstorming.  The plan was to peruse the store’s “color wall” and eliminate the hues that made either of us want to claw our eyes out of our heads or dry heave in an abandoned corner of the store.  Gradually we would, we hoped, find ourselves with a few possible choices that we both could agree upon.

It worked.  Sort of.

We discovered that we both liked a small assortment of colors in the spectrum of blue to gray.  This was progress, but we weren’t out of the woods yet.  Now, we needed to agree upon the exact shading of blue and gray.  Do we want more blue than gray?  Or should we go with a color that was more gray than blue?  I found myself saying things like, “I think we should pick a color that has enough blue in it that when you look at it, you know that it’s blue, but you don’t say to yourself, wow, that’s really blue!”

And my wife would nod her head as if I was still speaking English and was making perfect sense, even though I sounded to myself like an art critic trying to decide if he liked a Jackson Pollock painting.

We finally narrowed the selection down to two potential winners.  My wife began to discuss the pros and cons of each choice when I suddenly discovered that I had completely lost interest in the whole project.  One moment, I’m engaged and alert, and the next I’m staring at the floor, unable to focus on anything other than what kind of leftovers I might find in the refrigerator when I got home.  The needle on the gauge to my male tank of tolerance for home design projects had firmly landed on “E.”  I found my brain cluttered with thoughts like, “I’m going to spend most of my time inside the house, so what the hell do I care what the outside looks like?”  And, “Why do we need new paint, anyway?  The cracks in the old paint give the place character.”

My growing apathy must have been noticeable, because it was at this point that an employee of the shop decided it was time to intervene.  He offered to mix up two quarts of paint, one of each color we were considering, so we could take them home and paint sections of the house to get a better idea of how they would look on the entire exterior of the home.  I recommended that he should go back behind the counter and mind his own damned business, but my wife diplomatically reminded me that selling paint was his business, and I should probably just shut up and let the poor guy do his job.

We drove home with my wife cradling two small buckets of paint in her lap.

And that is pretty much where we are today.  The house has two large blotches of blue paint on one side, and I honestly can no longer tell the two shades apart.  The bad news is that we still have not decided on which color to go with, and the painters show up next week.  The good news is that I no longer care.  I might just tell them to use both colors in an elaborate pattern of stripes and swirls.  They can even add a few black patches and make polka dots if they like.

Why not?  I don’t have to look at it.

I will just sit on the couch in the living room and answer angry phone calls from the neighbors.

I guess the circus is coming to town, after all.

As the parent of a graduating senior in high school, it seems like the past month or so has been a blur of award ceremonies, banquets, rallies, and student/parent meetings.  I don’t think I have had a free night in two weeks.  Instead, every evening is dedicated to the Academic Award Ceremony, the Spring Band Concert and Award Ceremony, the Scholarship Foundation Banquet, and so many others that I could list, but I don’t want to completely fill up the available space on my computer’s hard drive.

When did all these “ceremonies” get started?  And does absolutely everybody have to get some kind of notice or recognition?  Are we concerned that somebody won’t get a crappy plastic trophy and from that moment forward their life will be ruined?

Last week, I attended the high school’s Academic Achievement Awards with my youngest daughter, EM2.  Just to give you some background, the night before this event the school had a banquet to honor the Senior students that had finished in the top 10 positions academically.  Now, I myself am not a whiz at logical puzzles, but I do know that if the school has already recognized its top 10, then the “Academic Achievements” that remain to be acknowledged are probably nothing I want to get too excited about.

I was correct to be skeptical.

The evening basically consisted of running through the names of students that had managed to finish their high school careers with a 2.0 GPA or higher.  For those that don’t want to do the math, that’s a C average (emphasis on “average”).  I spent an entire evening in an uncomfortable, metal, folding chair so I could hear my kid’s name mentioned somewhere in a crowd of 257 others.  No, wait … excuse me.  It was 258.  Apparently, there was a tie for 153^rd place.

Why does the school do this?  I don’t know.  I’ve never watched an Academy Awards show and had to sit through an extra two hours because: “In addition to our top 5 nominations for Best Picture, here is a list of two-hundred movies that we thought were just okay this year!”

When I graduated from high school (yes, I’m going to play the old man card here) there was the class valedictorian, and then there was … everybody else.  There was no ongoing list of students in ascending order of suck.  The only recognition anyone else received for their academic performance was a little piece of paper known as a diploma.  In fact, that piece of paper was the whole point of going to high school in the first place.  We were just happy we had managed to hold our shit together for four years without stabbing anyone.  Graduating was enough for most of us without sending us into a black spiral of depression because we didn’t get an extra pat on the back.

And if our grades and SAT scores were good, the only acknowledgement we wanted for that accomplishment was an acceptance letter from one of the colleges we applied for.

No plaque necessary.

Not only do I think the number of ceremonies these days is ridiculous, but I also have serious concerns about some of the specific awards that are handed out.  Model Student Award?  Really?  I mean, do we really need to recognize the kid that reminded the teacher when they forgot to hand out homework at the end of class?  Does a certificate ease the sting of the severe beatings he took in the bathroom from the other students after the bell rang?

If the school is going to make up reasons to give out trophies, can’t they at least make the award titles a little more interesting?  For example, in my daughter’s school band they could hand out the “Most Surprising Musician” award for that kid that nobody knew what the hell notes he was going to play next.  Or how about the “Sociopath Prize,” given out by the school faculty in hopes that the recipient might stop breaking out car windows in the staff parking lot.  That is an award ceremony that I would definitely want to attend.

But, no.  The schools seem determined to make these evening events as long and as dry as humanly possible.  And along with the seemingly interminable list of students crossing the podium and shaking hands with people they spent the rest of the year actively avoiding, with each name, there is a teacher making a “short” speech about why this student was selected for this particular accolade.  After the first two hours, all those speeches began to sound the same.  “This student made it a pleasure for me to come to work every day …” Blah.  Blah.  Blah.  I think it would have been a little closer to the truth if the presenter had simply said, I could tolerate this kid, while the rest of those little bastards made me want to cry into a whiskey bottle before cutting my wrists.

EM2 received a few awards this year. I don’t remember for what.  I think I fell asleep right before they announced her name.  I did see the trophies when she got them home, however.  They looked suspiciously like the Participation Trophy I got when I was twelve-years old and my little league baseball team finished dead last in our division.  Mostly because of me, but we don’t need to drag up those painful memories right now.  We can dive through that dumpster of shame some other time.

For now, it is enough to celebrate my daughter and her many accomplishments.  So to her I say, way to go, Sweetheart!  Congratulations on winning Best … um, … Most … uh….

Whatever.

I do not have the best eating habits.  The truth is that I never have.  When I was a child, my mother was not exactly known for her cooking skills, so I found myself frequently eating take-out and frozen dinners.  On nights that she actually had the time and inclination to fix a real meal, the offering more often than not was too burnt or ridiculously undercooked for me to force down more than a few bites.  I usually ended up making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich later in the evening or rummaging through the pantry for cookies or crackers to quell the rumblings in my belly.

I can’t blame the whole situation on my mother, however.  I had quite a sweet tooth while growing up (honestly, still do) and, to sate it, I would spend a large part of my allowance at the corner convenience store on candy, gum, cookies, and sugary sodas.  Because I was a pretty active kid and because I had the metabolism of a hummingbird on speed, I stayed thin and never seemed to notice any negative impacts from my sub-par diet.

That was then, this is now.

As I have gotten older, my dedication to the four basic food groups (sugar, butter, caffeine, and anything deep fried) has begun to pay off in some less than desirable dividends.  My weight is up, my energy is down, and the dog has started following me around just to see what tasty items are going to fall off of my shirt.  (Last night it was corn chips, I believe.  Might have been a muffin.)

I need to reverse this trend.  I need to start eating better.  Although I admit “better” is a pretty broad target.  Not putting half a stick of butter on my bread is “better.”  Eating two pieces of cheesecake for dessert instead of three is “better.”  Not stopping at McDonalds for a snack to build up enough energy to drive all the way across town to Jack in the Box is “better.”

And it is not just the kind of food I have been eating.  I need to cut back on the amount of food I eat as well.  My friends and family keep telling me that I should work on my portion control.  This is a new concept to me.  Previously, I thought portion control just meant that I had full access to the kitchen and could take as much as I wanted.

Unfortunately, I again have to put part of the blame for this problem on my parents.  My father always told me I had to eat everything on my plate.  He said it was wrong to waste food, and then he would mutter something about starving children in Africa.  Like, I had any idea where the hell Africa was.  I still probably couldn’t find the place on a map, but let’s keep to the original point.  My utter failure at geography is irrelevant to this rant and will have to be more deeply explored on some other day.

Because of my dad’s exhortations on behalf of starving kids neither of us had ever met, I have spent most of my life eating whatever was placed in front of me.  At a restaurant, I typically devour everything served on the plate except that inedible green thing set on the side for garnish.  What’s it called?  Oh, yeah … vegetables.

The other day, I went to a Chinese restaurant with my buddy, Bob, and ordered the beef and broccoli lunch for two.  It was delicious.  Bob ordered sesame chicken for himself.  Even with the added difficulty level of using chopsticks instead of a fork, I managed to finish the entire platter of beef and broccoli, chicken chow mein, and pork fried rice.  I knew it was too much food.  Everyone in the restaurant knew it was too much food, but still I powered on.  Half way through the meal, the waiter stopped by just to tell me I shouldn’t eat so much.  I told him I was fully aware I was overdoing it, and then ordered another egg roll.

When the check came, it came with a fortune cookie.  I broke it open and the note inside said, “For the love of God, please put the cookie down.”

What I’m getting at, I guess, is that I have a problem.  I know I have a problem and I am working on it, but I also know it is going to take time to correct a lifetime of poor eating habits.  I spent fifty years getting to this point, it may take a few more to turn it around.

For now, I need to wrap this up and go fix dinner for the family.  Tonight’s menu is baked salmon with stir fried broccoli and asparagus.  That, of course, is not what I will be eating.  I will go straight to dessert which will be two pieces of cheesecake.

Two, not three.

See?  Better.

I have heard it said that there are two kinds of people in the world: dog people and cat people.  I suppose, in a way this is true, but I would posit that there is actually a third category which does not normally get much attention.  There are dog people, cat people, and “why the hell are all these animals in my house” people.

It boggles my mind how the practice of allowing live, wild animals to wander unfettered inside a person’s home ever came into being.  And it makes me wonder who the first person was to have some kind of furred creature crawl into his house and then decide that not only was he not going to chase it away, but he would go ahead and start feeding it.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t hate animals.  I simply don’t understand the attraction of living with them.

I actually own a dog and a couple of cats, but having them in the house with me was not originally my idea.  They just seemed to appear without me having any say in the matter.  One day I’m a happy person with the full run of the house, the next day I’m a pet owner.

I have learned to tolerate them, and they in return allow me to remain in their presence (although I appear to be on shaky ground with one of the cats).  However, they are a lot of work to take care of and they seem to offer very little in return for all of the effort expended on them.  They require constant attention.  You have to clean up after them, feed them, exercise them, and, on rare occasions, scrape them off the road because they were too stupid to move out of the way of a moving car.  (Just to clarify, it was not my car.)

They are like children; all self-centered neediness and no gratitude.  In addition, animals will never grow up and move out of the house.  So … yeah, like I said: they are like children.

When you bring a dog indoors, it will wander the house aimlessly, scratching itself and drooling wherever it goes.  Occasionally it will drink out of the toilet and rummage through the garbage, eating anything it finds.  I fail to see the difference between adopting a dog and inviting a homeless person to stay with you.

And cats aren’t any better.  They will pee on the walls and carpet to mark their territory.  They dig through the litter box, pushing their feces around for the fun of it, then decide this would be a good time to take a stroll on the kitchen counter.  And when they are feeling ignored, they will rip up the furniture and throw up on the carpets.  Again, these are all services that any roadside transient would be happy to provide for a roof over his head and a steady supply of kibble.

And despite all we do for our animals, we must never forget that they are not our friends.  The only reason they stay around is because we give them stuff.  Hell, if I strolled into a neighbor’s house and they told me that they would feed me and take care of me for the rest of my life and all I had to do was poop in a box, I would never leave either.

I have heard people argue that dogs give unconditional love.  I must disagree on this assumption.  As a test, I suggest you put your dog in the back yard and stop feeding it.  Next, leave the gate open and I bet you will find out just how much your pet loves you.  My guess is Fido will be off looking for a new family before you can finish the sentence, “Where’d he go?”

But, I suppose the thing that bothers me the most about having pets in the house is the simple certainty that when I die, if my body is not found immediately, the animals are going to eat me.

I admit that dogs will at least wait until the body is cold before they dig in.  They will hang out for a while just to see if you get back up and put more doggy chow in their bowl.  But, if too much time goes by, there will come a point that “the guy who feeds me” becomes “the guy I ate.”

Cats don’t offer the same grace period.  As soon as a person stops moving, they are already circling, licking their chops.  I am convinced that if they thought they could get away with it they would just decide one day to pounce on their owners like a leopard on a wildebeest.

I have woken up in the morning on more than one occasion and found my cat sitting on the edge of the bed staring at me.  When I sit up, I swear that there is a look of disappointment in her eyes.  Then, she just jumps off the bed and saunters over to her food bowl as if to say, “Okay, I can wait one more day.”

I don’t like the fact that she is as aware of the inevitable outcome as I am.  She doesn’t even care enough about my feelings to pretend to feel bad about it.  Although, I sort of have to admire her confidence.

Does that make me a cat person?