How to get out of hot water

Right. So, I’m up.  But the at ’em part is going to have to simmer on the back burner for a little while longer. Holy cow, but this flu bug has kicked my butt this week. I’m getting too old for this stuff.

I recall somewhere in my youthful past showing up at work, but found I was having trouble concentrating and really not feeling all that great. Just to discover later that I was running a 102 fever the whole time.

Awesome, yeah? Tossing my cootie bugs around like field blossoms from a basket with all the naivety of a skipping maiden. I wasn’t just walking and talking while suffering from the flu, I drove to work. After I stopped to put gas in the car.

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But that’s all sailed away on the USS Glory of Youth. Yesterday morning I pad into the kitchen, snuffling and concentrating that last shred of energy into not hacking up the three quarters remaining of my bronchi. Thinking I might need most of those later when I can start breathing normal again.

I know I look pretty awful and I don’t care. No, that’s not really true. I can’t care. I need that feat of strength for more important things, like filling the tea kettle.

I took the dogs out, says The Husband, sitting at the breakfast table. Jager’s still outside though. I think he’s finishing off that bread you put out for the birds. 

Ok, I manage to squeak out. Awesome. Thanks.  I want to believe I sound all sultry and sexy like Jessica Rabbit* (I’m not bad. I’m just drawn that way), but know it’s coming out more like Frank, Robin William’s brother on Mrs. Doubtfire.

I have something else for you, says The Husband.

Aw, he’s going to blow me a kiss. That’s what he always says right before …

The hot water heater’s busted, he says.

I just look at him. [blink]

It’s leaking, he says. So I think it’s totally effed. Call Schmitt today to come out and see what they think. They’ll prolly have to replace it, so you need to get all that crap in front of it moved out of the way.

Ok, I squeak/bleat. I’m on it.

Ah, my old friend Adversity stops by for another home visit. What’s our coping mechanism for such things? Oh, it could always be worse, we all say. And it could, of course it could be much, much worse. We offer such thoughts to the Fates as positive waves and hope it’s not taken as a challenge to bump things up another notch.

This was Saturday. The man has to work, so I deal with the plumber who delivers the just-a-little-bit-worse news that he can’t replace the water heater until Monday. ‘Salright, no prob. This is just a temporary thing and is totally fixable.

This morning, as a distraction while I chip away the ice crystals clogging the Shower of Doom, I force myself to focus on positive thinking.

Well, that’s enough of that.

The arctic shower experience, that is. But let’s keep up with the positive thinking for a little bit longer.  After all, the dogs are going on about their day giving nary a thought to this lack of hot water. Well then, I can do it too.

So inspired by the dogs, I give you my top four reasons why not having hot water in the middle of an Ohio winter doesn’t have to suck.

I was planning on giving you five reasons, but I’m stretching here as it is.

1. Well, the dishwasher heats its own water, so there’s that. 

This is actually the little lord Yaxley as his younger self. This is not a posed shot, the stinker.

And even if it didn’t, I have three dogs in the house so hand washing is still not a problem for me.

Oh alright, alright. I can hear you, you know. You may not want to question this value system until you don’t have hot water for three days.

You know how your dad always said that a dog’s mouth is cleaner than a human’s? Not to dis your family’s knowledge base, but that’s just not true. Dogs just have a different kind of bacteria than we do.

I offer you that as a comfort.

You’re welcome.

2. We have our own natural sauna, of sorts, in the backyard. 

The dog with the Irish tan points out this natural phenomena for you. No need for arctic-fresh showers when we can enjoy the benefits of that underground spring.

Likely just a fissure in the earth’s crust foreboding an oncoming earthquake, water bubbles up from the depths of Hades to keep one spot of the yard so nice and wet.

All year round.

It’s been a favorite spa experience for the mighty Micron.

3. Snow is insulating

I read that somewhere on a gardening site or something. Like every inch of snow insulates by two degrees. Or I just made that up, I can never remember where I get this stuff.

Scientifically speaking then, making snow angels would be less, um … refreshing than this morning’s shower, right?

But Micron here is our sample of proof.  The dog is just covered in a goodly layer of snow from his romping about, but it’s not melting, is it?

Heh. Now that I think about it, maybe its dog hair that’s the insulator.

Well, one or the other.

What’s that you ask?  What’s Micron eating?  It’s not a squirrel or something is it?

Oh, no that would be the dead bird they found.  Hahahaha, just kidding. The dead bird was last week.  This is just tree bark.

A special delivery by Euka.

Her bark is worse than her … oh, I’m not even gonna finish that sentence.

And yeah, I took it away from them. I’m mean like that. There’s better ways to get fiber in your diet, my furry friends.

At least the bird offered up some protein.

4. I’ve seen worse.

In spades.

Sure, it wasn’t this bad. And yet, twinges of nostalgia.

Heck, growing up on the farm there were long winter weeks when we didn’t even have running water due to frozen pipes.  It was cold in the farmhouse, cold doing our chores, cold walking the quarter mile to the bus, cold on the bus and cold in the school.

Time stretched out where I thought I might never be warm again.

Until I scored an electric blanket, that is. I wore the thing like a second skin. Course I couldn’t travel more than four feet from an outlet or change my clothes, but still. Warmth. Live in the moment kinda thing.

So when The Husband gallantly offers that we can overnight at the local Holiday Inn for the warm showers, I’m all pshaw, Dude, this ain’t nothin’.

Because I get my hillbilly back when I wax nostalgic.

And because it’s not that bad, you know.  Three icy showers, reorganizing the basement, recovering from the flu, plus a huge plumbing bill … all combined this rates a full Six on the Suck Scale. Not gonna lie.

But it could be worse. It could always be much, much worse.

A look at blessings, y’all.  Not a challenge. We’re good here. Really.

_____________________________
*Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)

Jessica Rabbit: You don’t know how hard it is being a woman looking the way I do.