Roughin' it

Our hot water heater took a nose dive. In fact, it doesn't actually heat water anymore. Does that make the 'hot water heater' part a moot point?

Some time on Saturday our water heater ceased heating water. Too bad we didn't actually notice this wee factoid until Sunday morning. 6:30am, is, in fact, when I did notice that we had a substantial lack of hot water--we didn't even have tepid water. So, I told B.J. and he decided it wasn't heating due to a (likely) blown circuit breaker. He reset it. I chilled out and got my morning caffeine fix (if coffee could be given intravenously, I'd sign up...).

After an hour or so, what would have reasonably been long enough for said water heater to begin heating water, I tried to shower. Again. And, again, no hot water. This was a major drag, and a slight inconvenience to our morning. Given that by this point in time it was 8:00am, and we were slated to leave by 8:30am, to go visit family in another city, it necessitated a hasty (and unsatisfactory) baby-wipe-bath and sticking my head under the freezing cold tap to do something with the mass on the top of my head that greatly resembled a rooster's comb.

B.J. decided (reasonably) to reset the circuit breaker (again) and reset the circuit directly on the hot water heater. We figured that by the time we returned from our trip, some time that evening, we would once again be a part of the western world with hot running water.

WRONG!

Too bad we didn't realize it until 9:30pm Sunday evening--we still had a non-working hot water heater. Too late in the evening to actually work on fixing it/get parts. What that meant is that I got to (oh joy) go to work without a morning shower--yet another day being filthy. At this point it has gotten a bit...um...old. When I was 18 or 19 a shower was optional--hey, I was semi-hippie, and rebelling against the system a bit. But, at this age (undisclosed, you might notice) as a working professional, I don't do mornings without a shower.

Monday comes and goes. By the end of the day the children are beginning to resemble the poor street urchins that you see on the Sally Struthers 'sponsor a child' television commercials. I decide that I can't quite send my babies into the world looking like they are in need of social services to rescue them. To accomplish a bath I have to find out how to wash them in reasonably warm water: I boiled a huge stockpot of water on the stove, slogged it (without spilling or burns--on anyone! Hallelujah!) to the kids' bathroom and dumped it into the bathtub. This produced a bath of approximately 1/2 cm. deep water. To cool it down and to give us enough to work with I ran cold water into the tub, to make it about 2" deep.

I have a whole new appreciation for my great-great-grandmother and the womenfolk before her. What a chore to boil water to have a warm bath. It is no wonder why our ancestors only bathed monthly (and semi-annually before that). I also have a bigger appreciation of the differences between the classes--the upper classes could afford to have servants who would boil and slog up hills, stairs, and who-knows-where-else to provide a hot bath for their employers. What a thankless task that must have been, for very little return. I'm, again, grateful that I was born where and when I was born.

Tuesday arrives with all of its unshowered, ripening, hate-to-stick-my-head-in-the-cold-water ugly rainy day glory. I get to be present and accounted for at my place of employment, with only a sponge bath and some (very expensive) perfume to (hopefully) disguise any of my not-next-to-godliness (you know, like the old proverb: Cleanliness is next to...). B.J. takes the day off of work to solve our hot water woes.

In the end, it turns out that it is a simple and inexpensive fix. Yay!! B.J. brainstorms with the guys at George Morlan Plumbing and with my Dad (Mr. Fix-it of the universe--this man can fix it, build it, design it--from cars to appliances to building houses (which, as a matter of fact, he built the one he currently live in--by himself!!)). The end result: our hot water heater needed a $33 part (a new thermostat) and, voilà! We have hot water.

I can hardly wait until I put the kidlets to bed so that I can go and be decadent, and wallow in a super hot, turn-me-lobster-red, ultra luxurious hot water shower.