Tall grass and broken toilets

copyright 2005 Dale Hansen - no reproduction without permission

I haven't written for a long time for the following reasons: Hot cold air, washing dishes with a semi-automatic, trying to get a handle on the toilet, and mowing for the city.

OK? Everything makes sense now, right?

Humph. OK, let me start over.

The last storm of the season had ended a day or two before, but the rain and the humidity decided to stick around. My wife and I were finishing dinner when a strong and unpleasant smell began to insinuate itself into the room. It couldn't have been my cooking (because it would have smelled long before then), and all the burners were off. I couldn't find the smell at first, but it grew stronger and fouler as time went on.

It was rather reminiscent of my first car. Rather, it reminded me of the death of my first car: the one that froze when some bearings burned out and melted. I then noticed the AC was no longer shaking.

The AC had developed a rattle and a shimmy that threatened to pick the entire thing up and walk it out of the closet. I understand that an AC with a wicked shimmy is NOT a good thing (forgive me Cuppa, I mean Air Conditioner), but being as financially strapped as we’ve been, we were hoping to limp it along to the end of the season. No such luck.

Whatever wasn't working before was now melting. I turned off the AC as fast as I could, but the smell increased for a long time before it began to dissipate.

We were left with the swamp.

Now, for those of you in the great white north, or near a coast who have no idea what I am talking about - by swamp I mean swamp cooler; also called an evaporative cooler. A swamp cooler pulls outside air in through wet pads and blows it into the house. In theory, this cools the air and thus, the house. A swamp cooler works wonders - if the dew point is less then 50 degrees. Anything over fifty, and there's already too much moisture in the air too cool it well, anything over 55 and the entire thing becomes an enormous roof-mounted fan and the humidity in the house just increases without decreasing the temperature.

The dew point that day, and for the next few days, was 64.

This was when the swamp cooler really lived up to its name. It was muggy, miserable and 108 degrees in the shade. Whoever the architect was that decided a large living room window should face west in Phoenix should be roasted under glass - like we were.

Still we tried to make the best of it. There was no sitting in the leather chair in front of the computer, though, so no BLOGging.

The next day, I ran the dishwasher. My dishwasher is a "portable", meaning in this case, it has wheels so I can drag it across the kitchen floor and hook it up to the sink.

The connector to the faucet had a small but dramatic leak, so I would turned the water off as soon as the dishwasher ended. I heard it end, and on cue I got up and walked into the kitchen. As I turned the corner, the faucet blew out.

It's one of those pullout faucets with a switch to alternate stream and spray. Apparently, the back pressure of years of automatic dishwasher overwhelmed the switch and it blew.

Just as I came with in sight.

I think it was a cold and deliberate act. Plumbing and I have never gotten along well, and I believe that the faucet waited until I was nearby to blow out. The odd thing is, the dishwasher, unaffected by the faucet, still worked, and the water still cycled fine - as long as I stood next to the faucet the entire time and turned the water on and off between cycles.

I now had a semi-automatic dishwasher.

Well, at least I could still use it and didn't have to stand over a steaming hot sink in a steaming hot house. I was truly grateful for what I did have left. Then the toilet handle broke.

I had replaced it some time ago with the only style Wal-Mart (OK, OK, I know!) had. It was cheap plastic. It had sheared off in the tank, so every time you needed to flush, you had to go digging in the reservoir and pull up the remainder of the mechanism.

I told you plumbing and I didn't get along well.

OK, so I had to fix the faucet, the toilet, the truck - don't ask - and then I got a love letter from the city. While I was trying to wash dishes, flush toilets and grow gills in my own little rainforest, I hadn't had time to go out and - mow. The grass had grown a bit high, I'll admit, but it was Wednesday, and I had the entire weekend ahead. It was supposed to dry out then too, and that's when swamp coolers are FANTASTIC! I was hoping to wait, but the city of Phoenix thought differently. Apparently, they sent someone over with a ruler to measure my grass, because I was warned that that no grass was allowed to exceed 4 inches in height. I think I had two or three weeds pushing 5 inches. I'm just glad it wasn't a capital offense!

So, instead of fixing the sink, fixing the toilet, fixing the truck - no, seriously, don't ask - I had to stop everything I was doing and give my yard a pedicure.

The house is nice and cold now, the pluming is all fixed, the dishwasher now bypasses the faucet entirely and the truck is running smoothly – thanks for not asking. The entire yard is less than half an inch tall, and 6 tons of crushed rock is starting to look like a really good landscaping alternative.

I'm planning on sleeping for a month.

If I can get the time off of work.