Plumbing Our Depths
November 29, 2007 by Veronica Mitchell
Our kitchen faucet dripped. Blip, blip, blip, bloop. Constantly.
Az the Helpful Husband changed the washer, but it still dripped. The faucet needed to be replaced.
Az’s father has quietly shown his love for our girls by home improvement since the first birth, installing, at last count: a new toilet, a new sink, a new dishwasher, improved wiring, a new bathroom light and switch, several hall light fixtures, and new phone extensions. So we crossed our fingers and hoped that their Thanksgiving visit might also bring a fervent desire to improve our lives with a new faucet. It did. We are blessed.
Papa did not have time to install the new faucet before he had to return home, but he left secure in the knowledge that Az the Handy could take care of that.
And here is where our story begins to go awry.
Az the Husband has fixed and improved many things around our house. He is, with categorical Victorian capitalization, a Useful Man. But Useful Men are often disappointed in the rest of the world for not designing things for optimal Usefulness.
Not all manufacturers are concerned with pleasing the exacting standards of Useful Men. Some manufacturers are complacent in their belief that the curses called down upon them for their laxity in design have no real power. And they must be right, or we would read about many more gruesome, horrible deaths among the makers of home improvement supplies, tools and pre-fab parts.
Generally, when Az the Husband is being Useful, I take the children away on an outing, preferably to some place where the language will be cleaner. Like a bombing range or Kevin Smith movie.
Just kidding. I would never take my children to a Kevin Smith movie.
But this time the children and I stayed home, and Az did an admirable job of keeping his curses inchoate and unintelligible. We heard a few roars. He stomped upstairs once, and if storm clouds could take human form, they would look just like he did, but all in all, he behaved much better than when he put together our first armoir that first year of marriage.
We have been married long enough that I no longer exactly find him scary when he is like this. Mostly I try to stay out of his way, I call my sister for conversation and I maintain my good humor by finding him funny. According to him, this does not help.
So after several hours of trying to remove the old faucet, he growled that I needed to take over. Az exercised his Usefulness by controlling the children, while I squeezed myself into a space too small for his shoulders, and turned a basin wrench in a space too small for his hands.
It worked. I lay under our tiny kitchen sink and managed to get the old faucet off, as nasty bits of thirty-year-old crud fell on my face and in my hair. We got the new faucet on and it looks lovely. I cannot show you how lovely, because our camera is currently out of batteries and I cannot find the charger. But trust me, it’s lovely.
I have learned how to change a faucet. Az is able to smile again. And so far as I know, no one involved in the manufacture or installation of the old faucet has yet burst into flames.
Success.
I hate it when you have to walk around on egg shells. I have a dripping tap too but not your plumbing skills.
Cheers
Ah. We have 3, count them 3, dripping faucets in our home. But no plumbing skills to speak of. Good for you both, and how wonderful to such a wonderful Father in law.
Big men are useful for carrying luggage. It is much harder for us to fit into tight spaces. I to can become irritated when my shoulders, arms or fingers don’t fit where they need to to repair or replace something. I am glad you were able to help.
I’ve worked with Az on a project before. I don’t remember any stomping or bad conversation. Of course I wasn’t having a humorous conversation with little sister while he worked. Is that the key to get this reaction from Az?
brother
So funny and so well written. I love it. I am familiar with one such Useful Man who disdains inexacting design and it seems that category includes everything ever manufactured.
Brother,
No indeed. It is much more likely that he abstained from angry behavior because he was in the presence of his brother-in-law. You are soothingly calm during such things.
Aww, well, at least he tried. If I want something fixed, I must go buy the parts myself, drag out the correct tools, and lock my unsuspecting husband in whatever room said broken object is in.
It helps having small hands sometimes. I have to change the oil filter on the car because I can get my hands in and maneuver it off.
My dad came to visit for Thanksgiving and worked the whole time he was here. Even if I don’t ask him to fix broken things, he finds them and asks about them, and the next thing I know we’re truckin to Home Depot. Such a blessing.
I am fervently thankful right now that my dad never has ANY desire to help me at all with my house, because he is the opposite of a useful man.
Sometimes, he buys me eggs when they’re on sale. That’ll do.
My husband, however, is VERY USEFUL. If given enough steel wool, he could knit you a car. Very comforting.
Loved this - reminds me of my dad, actually. I’m so glad I married a handy guy. My sister married a film/entertainment type of guy and he doesn’t know how to do ANYTHING. I’m not sure how they’ll survive now that they’ve moved away. They’ll probably spend his entire salary on handymen.
You fixed it together! What a lovely metaphor.
Whenever we have things like that happen I’ve learned not to try and fix it because we manage to make it even worse where it costs real money to fix. Not handy.
Ah…reminds me of life in Mauritania. (Do I say this too often? Am I boring?) Donn often had to replace, and then, a week later, replace again, our faucets. You simply couldn’t get well-made stuff, and I know you are thinking you can relate, but trust me, the stuff sold there was pure crap. Not good. So I can relate to storm clouds in human form and finding other things to do with children
This reminds me of my dad. He would study the Readers Digest home repair guide and then decide if it was doable!
Woe to anyone who used or misplaced his book!
Home maintenance and ill-concealed cursings always seem to go hand in hand, don’t they? It made me laugh as it reminded me of that classic tale “A Christmas Story”, when Ralphie Parker gets his mouth washed out with soap for uttering a four-letter-word he learned from his father.
And brava to you for getting down and dirty! We have a few faucet replacements in our near future here as well, but I’m not sure I will be as much help to my husband as you were to yours.
Count me in the Helpful Husband category who somewhere down deep thinks he really is a Useful Husband. I can’t begin to tell you how amazingly similar your experiences here are to our own… blast those unconcerned manufacturers!!
Ah, yes, the horrfying deaths that would occur around the globe during any of our home improvement efforts. I feel for the poor soul that wired our house whenever we trip a breaker by turning on one too many lights.