Dad and I picked out the new water heater and we upgraded to a 50-gallon from a 40-gallon. The box was a little dented up and torn, but these things happen when they’re being shipped around the country.
We purchased the pipe and the other things that we needed, loaded up the truck, and headed for home.
Our neighbor Rick gave us a hand with a torch, pipe cutter, and solder. He’s like my father; they live for that kind of stuff. Me? Well, I was looking for an exit.
As they were hooking it up, it became obvious that a valve and more copper pipe were going to be needed. So, they sent me back to the big home improvement center.
When it comes to those places, I’m like an uptight 60 year-old virgin at a porno convention. I felt out of place and I don’t know my way around much less about what you use that BIG thing hanging on the wall for. I walked around confused looking for stuff on the very aisles that I was on an hour ago. There was no one around to help me and I managed to find what I needed after looking over the whole aisle for 10 minutes.
I got home and my father asked with a sly smile, “What took you so long?”
The heater was hooked up and the water was turned on. Everything seemed fine until Rick noticed water coming out of the bottom at a steady pace. The tank inside had a leak and everything needed to be taken apart and returned for another water heater.
We get there and tell the manager about the problem and a replacement was on the same aisle. Again, the box was a little dented up. I whipped out my check card to do the return and repurchase (lots of red tape you see). We loaded that mofo onto the truck and head to KFC to get some chicken livers for lunch.
I was not pleased with my mashed potatoes and gravy. The person putting the meal together used the same scoop that they used for the slaw. I hate slaw. I detest it. And when you despise something like that, it’s just not cool to have a mouth full of that crap when your taste buds are expecting gravy-covered potatoes. The mashed potatoes and gravy were abandoned.
After lunch, my father tore into the box and found that the newly exchanged water heater had suffered some concealed damage. Yep, the bottom of the heater had been crimped up like had been involved in a head-on collision on US 220. So, it was back to the big home improvement joint again.
My patience and dad’s bad jokes were starting to wear thin. The manager sold me a better model with a longer warranty for the same price that we had paid for the previous two heaters. I explained to him that I had been in that place more on that day than I had been my whole life. And folks, that is no joke. Tools and stuff like that just ain’t my thing. I’d rather visit the dentist for ten minutes than be in a hardware store for an hour.
We got the joker home and it was getting close for me to go to work. I hit my sister Tina up for a shower at her apartment just down the road.
It was SOOooooo good to get that 2-day funk off me! I felt the same way a dog does after a bath. I wanted to run around at breakneck speeds while rubbing my face on the carpet and bumping into highly fragile stuff. I was CLEAN, damn it!
And later when I got home, glorious hot water was running at every faucet marked with an “H”. Life was returning to normal in my little world. I could get back to watching some ‘Sex and the City’ from Netflix. I’m on season 4 now for those of you keeping score.
I also squeezed in some Mystery Science Theatre 3000 too.
I noticed that my friend Brad had watched all the MST3K titles from my Netflix buddy list. So I put them onto my queue as well. I spaced them out because I didn’t want to over do it. Besides, I love tinkering with my queue. One day, I may well go blind from tinkering too much.
I watched ‘Attack of the Giant Leeches’ and for some reason, it didn’t impress me as much this time around. I remember laughing my ass off the first time, but the magic just wasn’t there anymore. I gave it 3 stars on Netflix. Brad gave it 5 stars.
The last one I received was ‘Beginning of the End’ produced and directed by Bert I. Gordon. It stars Peter Graves and it’s about giant locusts threatening Chicago. I missed that one when it first ran on TV because it had Mike instead of Joel. It wasn’t quite the “Darren” switch that occurred ‘Bewitched’, but the switch on MST3K just killed it for me. Don’t even get me started when TV’s Frank was no longer on the show….
I wasn’t impressed with ‘Beginning of the End’. And, that’s after never having seen it before. I gave it 3 stars on Netflix.
The invitation to be one of my many Netflix buddies is always here…
eugenebsims@yahoo.com
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