What follows goes into the category of the ebb and flow of life, or maybe... you win some you lose some, or even, you must take the bitter with the sweet. If any of you are my secret enemies and read this blog only to collect evidence to support your resentment against me, or if any of you have quietly resented my three week Maine vacation, you're gonna love this!
Ok, so after unpacking yesterday, I collapsed on my bed for a nap. I've come down with some sort of sinus thing/cold or something, so I was pretty wiped out. When I woke up, I walked downstairs and noticed that where my coffee maker used to be there's an unopened box containing a brand new Hamilton Beech model. My wife explained that when she opened the lid to give it a clean after three weeks of inactivity, she noticed a that the filter and grounds from my last pot was still in there, encrusted with enough mold to kill an asthmatic at thirty paces. She had made the snap decision that instead of cleaning it out, the damage was so severe and disgusting, only a new coffee maker would do. So, she did an online search of five different stores, picked out this Hamilton Beech beauty and marched herself over to Walmart to buy it...and there it set. The maiden pot was brewed without incident. All was well until thirty minutes later when we noticed an odd humming noise coming from the shiny new appliance. The side of the thing became hot. The unmistakable smell of burning plastic filled the air, then the digital display began to flicker. It seemed possessed by an evil demon. Pam grabbed the chord and ripped it from its plug, preventing it from bursting into flames. Now, I have no coffee maker.
After this fiasco, things settled down nicely. We had dinner while we watched the first episode of the new Ken Burns Vietnam documentary. After dinner, Pam loaded the dish washer, turned it on, then went about her business. Suddenly, I heard her exclaim...Oh no!! What's this?? There's water leaking out of the dish washer!!
Over the next couple of hours, Pam and I did our best Keystone Cop imitation as we frantically tried to...get it to stop!!! Turn it off!...was my expert advice. But turning it off did nothing to stop the flow of hot, dirty water being belched out across the kitchen floor. Legions of towels were brought to bear against the gushing beast. I tried opening the door, which turned the flow into a deluge. Quickly I ran to the fuse box and turned off power to the thing, to no avail. Still, the water gushed. Pam, frantic and wild eyed, instructed me to crawl under the house and find the thing that shuts off the water to the house! I did as I was told, of course, although in twenty years here I have crawled under the house exactly once, and had no idea where this magical valve was located. But, there I was on hands and knees, crawling towards the sound of rushing water, with a sharp eye peeled for any reptilian beasts that might be lurking in the formidable shadows. To my great relief, I heard my wife scream, the water has stopped!!
Of course now we had the dish washer door opened, and it was full of water and weighed a ton. The inside of the expiring appliance was also full of water. If Pam's husband was the handy type and knew anything about how stuff works, he might have instinctively known what to do. But, that ship has sailed...so she did what she always does in times of mechanical crisis...she called Ron Roop, my brother-in-law. Within fifteen minutes, he shows up with a shop vac to suck up the water in the bottom of the dish washer. Although it worked, it also began some belching of its own, spewing filthy water out of several places around the the lid. Then we positioned a couple of deep dish pans under the door of the unit and slowly lifted the door, releasing torrents of water all over the place, but mostly into the dishes. After bailing in this fashion for fifteen minutes, it finally stopped leaking. Order was finally restored and every towel we owned was now draped over the deck railings to dry, making our deck look like it belonged to a family of Gypsies.
So, now I have no coffee maker, our dish washer doesn't work, and the hard wood floor in the kitchen is bowing quite nicely.
Welcome back home, Dunnevant's!!!
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