Holiday Weekend, Part I

I must admit that I dreaded this holiday weekend going into it.

The previous weekend, our youngest son noted water standing in the alley and yard beside the utility room. It wasn't a lake by any means, but water was standing where water hadn't ought to be standing, and since it hadn't rained, I put on my ole thinking cap and arrived at the idea that it was probably the washing machine drain.

It helped to tip me off that I could smell laundry detergent and there were worms floating all over the place. (Soapy water drives worms to the surface. It's a neat little trick to use when you need some worms to go fishing. Soak an area of your yard in soapy water, and voila! You will have bait.) Another clue was when I grabbed the Y shaped PVC drain behind the washer, it fell through with a thump to the ground beneath the house.

I became quite an expert crawling under the house over this past winter. Something was always freezing up. The one thing about when it is cold is the fact that there are no spiders, snakes, and other creepy crawlies. So not only are we fully into spider season, but there was also the small fact this plumbing is under a different section of the house - a section of the house designed for anorexic plumbers.

I knew my husband couldn't fit under there. My dad told us to cut a hole in the utility room floor. (He grew up in this house, and as a child, he'd been sent under there a time or two and knew there was little wiggle room for an average size guy.) Really, I'm not kidding. Anyone over about 180 lbs wasn't going to fit. I started making a mental list of all the skinny people I know and put them on speed dial.

It was up to our 15 year old son. I crossed my fingers when we sent him under there. Thankfully, he doesn't have any claustrophobic tendencies like his mother. A piece of rubber drain had dry rotted over the years, and that was the problem. A new coupling was all it took. I reassembled the drain behind the washer while our son took care of the plumbing underneath.

I was so relieved that I didn't have to get under there and it was a rather simple fix.

You see, any time my husband has to get involved in something like that he does one of two things, and sometimes both - he will threaten to burn the house down or divorce me. I don't know how either really solves the problem at hand, but either way, I usually end up wondering if I'm going to end up homeless before the problem is remedied.

Also, our luck usually goes something like this - attempt to fix the problem at hand, and lo and behold, find something else that is wrong. I'm happy to say that wasn't the case. (Knock on wood.)

Anyway, I was so relieved and happy when it was taken care of, I could have danced on the coffee table. But, I didn't because I reserve dancing on the coffee table for the first day of school and the return to school after Christmas break.