The joke has several slight variations in different tellings, but the essence is the same. I'll tell it this way - I'm hoping to have my money and my life run out at the same time. If I can just die before lunchtime on Thursday, I'll be set.
There was a letter to the editor in today's Wilmington (Del.) News Journal from a newly-divorced, 60-something (I'm assuming - she mentions 40 years of marriage), disabled woman who had been a stay-at-home mom, who now finds herself unable to get health care. I posted a comment on the website, replying to the majority of posters who are opposed to a dime of their money helping anyone else get health care (or anything else, for that matter). It got me to thinking, really about the whole of our economy. Forty years ago, she was able to make that choice.
Right around that same time, my mother more or less made the same choice. She worked part time, 4 days a week and only a few hours a day, till her youngest child (your humble correspondent) graduated high school, because she wanted to be home when we came home from school. My dad never made a lot of money. He was, and is, a blue-collar worker. Literally - his work shirts are, in fact, dark blue. They raised 4 kids who didn't have to come home to an empty house on working-man's wages. You used to be able to do that.
Can you imagine that happening today? My wife and I have 2 salaries, no kids, and most months it seems like we're barely above water. From what I can see of the people around me, our situation seems much more to be the standard than the exception. Most of the people around me seem to be just barely keeping ahead.
When, why, did life get to be so unaffordable? Why are so many of us teetering on the edge of a precipice, needing only one serious, unexpected expenditure to push us over the brink? Home foreclosures are skyrocketing, millions have no health coverage, people are working more and more hours, and real wages (compared with cost of living) have gone down over the past few decades. What the hell is going on here?
I'd like to think that the choices we make on Election Day this November could help to turn things around, but the cynic in me says that the real power is far removed from Washington and St. Paul.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Monday, August 4, 2008
1:45 A.M.
I was up late Saturday night, watching a movie. It wasn't over till about 1:30 A.M. or so. I got myself ready for bed, and was just heading down the hall towards the bedroom when I heard what sounded like some sort of rushing water coming from downstairs. It sounded similar to the time that one of the cats turned on the downstairs tub - the faucet handles are up on the edge of the tub, so they're cat accessible. Largely due to that event, we keep that door closed, tho I thought that maybe I'd left it open and the same thing had happened. Or maybe the utility sink in the laundry room got turned on in a similar fashion. As I headed downstairs, one of the cats was racing upstairs in a panic, so I further thought that might be the case.
Except that I quickly found that the bathroom door was, in fact closed. I stopped in front of it to listen for a moment, and it quickly became clear that the water noise was coming from inside the bathroom, not from the laundry room. Not good. I opened the door, turned out the light, and...
I wish I could have seen the look on my face. It was the tub again. It was the cold water again. You'll recall that the room was inaccessible to the cats, so it's not like the faucet had been turned on. No, n -, what had happened here was that the faucet handle had completely disengaged from the plumbing assembly. The threaded copper pipe that connected the handle to the pipeline had simply broken. A little piece of it, I found later, was still threaded into the pipe. The majority of it was still threaded into the handle, which now sat on its side, useless and completely out of place, on the tub edge a few inches from where it had previously been, and where it had previously stopped the flow of high-pressure water. Believe me, it was doing nothing of the sort any longer. It looked like the centerpiece of a fountain. Water was shooting straight up, all the way to the ceiling. A lot of it.
Let me give you a little background here. This tub was installed by the previous owners of the house. And by that, I'm pretty sure I don't mean that they acquired the tub and hired someone to do the installation. It's pretty clear that they... we usually blame the husband... actually installed the tub. It's a jetted tub, so not only are there the basic incoming water and drain connections, but there's a separate set-up of piping coming out of the tub, through a pump and heater, and back to the tub through various jets. You don't that yourself unless you're an experienced plumber, and this guy quite clearly was not. First off, he put the pump and heater in a pit under the tub, so they're totally inaccessible for service. Not a big deal, we never use it as a jet tub. Largely due to the fact that the tub is way too big for the water heater the home has. By the time you fill the tub, there's so much cold water in there that it takes about 20 minutes for the tub heater to get the water to comfortable temperature. Then there's the fact that the shut-off valve in the cold water plumbing line is... here's that word again... inaccessible behind one of the pieces of wood in the structure he built around the tub, on which the marble tile is installed.
The shut-off valve issue certainly came in to play here. It would have made the issue much less severe if I could have simply shut off the flow of water before it got to where the faucet was. There still would have been some on the floor to mop up, but not that much. But no, Mr. Genius Boy had assured that wasn't possible. Not only could I not get a decent grip on it, but the piece of wood that blocked access also was in the way of the handle turning to the fully closed position. We turned off the pump, the main water supply to the house, and waiting till all the water that had been in the tank, or at least enough so that the pressure was low enough to stop the flow, had come out through our faucet pipe.
It took about 45 minutes to mop up all the water. We did some searching for plumber, figuring we would have to have one over on Sunday to address the issue. It was about 3 A.M. by the time I got to bed, which didn't make any difference because I didn't sleep. Since I got out of bed at 5:30, I had plenty of time to try to close off the shut-off valve. Hey, here's one good thing - now that the faucet wasn't holding the plumbing line firmly in place, I was able to move it away from the wood far enough that, once I could get around the wood structure adequately, I was able to close off the valve. Since I had the valve closed, and we were able to turn the water back on, we didn't need to pay to have a plumber out on Sunday. He came out today, but it turns out we have to have the right kind of faucet, and it's not one that you can just go in and buy in the stores we have around here. So, he's got to track that down, and we'll go from there.
Except that I quickly found that the bathroom door was, in fact closed. I stopped in front of it to listen for a moment, and it quickly became clear that the water noise was coming from inside the bathroom, not from the laundry room. Not good. I opened the door, turned out the light, and...
I wish I could have seen the look on my face. It was the tub again. It was the cold water again. You'll recall that the room was inaccessible to the cats, so it's not like the faucet had been turned on. No, n -, what had happened here was that the faucet handle had completely disengaged from the plumbing assembly. The threaded copper pipe that connected the handle to the pipeline had simply broken. A little piece of it, I found later, was still threaded into the pipe. The majority of it was still threaded into the handle, which now sat on its side, useless and completely out of place, on the tub edge a few inches from where it had previously been, and where it had previously stopped the flow of high-pressure water. Believe me, it was doing nothing of the sort any longer. It looked like the centerpiece of a fountain. Water was shooting straight up, all the way to the ceiling. A lot of it.
Let me give you a little background here. This tub was installed by the previous owners of the house. And by that, I'm pretty sure I don't mean that they acquired the tub and hired someone to do the installation. It's pretty clear that they... we usually blame the husband... actually installed the tub. It's a jetted tub, so not only are there the basic incoming water and drain connections, but there's a separate set-up of piping coming out of the tub, through a pump and heater, and back to the tub through various jets. You don't that yourself unless you're an experienced plumber, and this guy quite clearly was not. First off, he put the pump and heater in a pit under the tub, so they're totally inaccessible for service. Not a big deal, we never use it as a jet tub. Largely due to the fact that the tub is way too big for the water heater the home has. By the time you fill the tub, there's so much cold water in there that it takes about 20 minutes for the tub heater to get the water to comfortable temperature. Then there's the fact that the shut-off valve in the cold water plumbing line is... here's that word again... inaccessible behind one of the pieces of wood in the structure he built around the tub, on which the marble tile is installed.
The shut-off valve issue certainly came in to play here. It would have made the issue much less severe if I could have simply shut off the flow of water before it got to where the faucet was. There still would have been some on the floor to mop up, but not that much. But no, Mr. Genius Boy had assured that wasn't possible. Not only could I not get a decent grip on it, but the piece of wood that blocked access also was in the way of the handle turning to the fully closed position. We turned off the pump, the main water supply to the house, and waiting till all the water that had been in the tank, or at least enough so that the pressure was low enough to stop the flow, had come out through our faucet pipe.
It took about 45 minutes to mop up all the water. We did some searching for plumber, figuring we would have to have one over on Sunday to address the issue. It was about 3 A.M. by the time I got to bed, which didn't make any difference because I didn't sleep. Since I got out of bed at 5:30, I had plenty of time to try to close off the shut-off valve. Hey, here's one good thing - now that the faucet wasn't holding the plumbing line firmly in place, I was able to move it away from the wood far enough that, once I could get around the wood structure adequately, I was able to close off the valve. Since I had the valve closed, and we were able to turn the water back on, we didn't need to pay to have a plumber out on Sunday. He came out today, but it turns out we have to have the right kind of faucet, and it's not one that you can just go in and buy in the stores we have around here. So, he's got to track that down, and we'll go from there.
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