When You're Hot, You're Hot. When You're Not, You're Not.
I had an interesting experience this past Monday, one that I have not had the "pleasure" (cough) to experience in almost 3 decades. I got to take a cold shower.
No, it wasn't because I saw some hot babe somewhere, get you mind out of the gutter, besides, there's only room for my mind down there (hehe). What happened was, I wasn't intending on taking a cold shower, it just worked out that way. There I was, just taking my normal morning shower, prior to trudging... I mean, going off to work, and so I turned on the faucet, and gave it the customary 1 minute for the hot water to travel from the water heater in the garage to the back of the house, then I stepped in.
YEOW!! Cold shower (burrrr), no hot water, at all. Actually, it was more like a "cool" shower, since there's no such thing as getting cold water from a faucet in Arizona in the summertime. Thing is, it was definitely not Hot. I still need to shower though, so there was no choice. Ahhhhh nothing like a cold shower, I haven't had to take one of those, since my USMC Boot Camp days, when my Drill Instructors use to amuse themselves by turning off the hot water in the middle of the platoon shower time. Funny guys huh? At the time, I remember thinking of other names to call them, but I think I'll keep those to myself.
Anyway, afterwards, I went out to the Garage, and discovered a puddle at the base of the electric water heater, and when I opened the panel, I discovered water had leaked out of the tank, into the space where the heaters were, and I smelled burnt electrical. I've smelled that smell quite a few times in my electronics career, and it's never good news. same thing this time.
I was going to leave it for the weekend, but the slowly expanding water puddle didn't make that idea appealing, so I called the plumber, and they sent somebody over. I wasn't expecting a 3 day weekend, however, sitting around waiting for him to arrive wasn't exactly how I planned to spend my Monday. When he got there, it was pretty much what I figured, can't be fixed, need to be replaced. I guess I could have gone the cheap way, and gone to the warehouse store, bought one, got it delivered, do the brazing to swap it out, haul the old one to the dump, be without hot water for several days.... blah blah blah blah blah....
Or, since he had a replacement water heater on the truck (what a coincidence, eh?), I could just have him do it, and be done with it. Guess what I did? If you said, go the cheap way..... buuuuzzzzzz, wrong answer. The old financially impoverished Tom might have gone that route, but the current... "I don't even want to clean my house, so I pay somebody to do it" Tom went with the "do it now and be done with it", route.
Yeah yeah, I know, throw my money away, but you know what? SO WHAT. I didn't bust my ass all these years to become financially independent, so that I would run around counting every little red cent. I did it, so that I wouldn't have to waste my time doing things I don't want to do, when I can pay someone else to do it for me. I'm sure that many others would have gone the "do it yourself" route, and save some money..... Good for them. That's why I'm glad I live in America, where everyone can do what they want, as long as it doesn't hurt someone else.
Besides, in the end, I didn't have to get my hands dirty, and that new water heater really pumps out the hot water. I took and extra long shower on Tuesday morning, and in my opinion, that was worth every penny :-)
No, it wasn't because I saw some hot babe somewhere, get you mind out of the gutter, besides, there's only room for my mind down there (hehe). What happened was, I wasn't intending on taking a cold shower, it just worked out that way. There I was, just taking my normal morning shower, prior to trudging... I mean, going off to work, and so I turned on the faucet, and gave it the customary 1 minute for the hot water to travel from the water heater in the garage to the back of the house, then I stepped in.
YEOW!! Cold shower (burrrr), no hot water, at all. Actually, it was more like a "cool" shower, since there's no such thing as getting cold water from a faucet in Arizona in the summertime. Thing is, it was definitely not Hot. I still need to shower though, so there was no choice. Ahhhhh nothing like a cold shower, I haven't had to take one of those, since my USMC Boot Camp days, when my Drill Instructors use to amuse themselves by turning off the hot water in the middle of the platoon shower time. Funny guys huh? At the time, I remember thinking of other names to call them, but I think I'll keep those to myself.
Anyway, afterwards, I went out to the Garage, and discovered a puddle at the base of the electric water heater, and when I opened the panel, I discovered water had leaked out of the tank, into the space where the heaters were, and I smelled burnt electrical. I've smelled that smell quite a few times in my electronics career, and it's never good news. same thing this time.
I was going to leave it for the weekend, but the slowly expanding water puddle didn't make that idea appealing, so I called the plumber, and they sent somebody over. I wasn't expecting a 3 day weekend, however, sitting around waiting for him to arrive wasn't exactly how I planned to spend my Monday. When he got there, it was pretty much what I figured, can't be fixed, need to be replaced. I guess I could have gone the cheap way, and gone to the warehouse store, bought one, got it delivered, do the brazing to swap it out, haul the old one to the dump, be without hot water for several days.... blah blah blah blah blah....
Or, since he had a replacement water heater on the truck (what a coincidence, eh?), I could just have him do it, and be done with it. Guess what I did? If you said, go the cheap way..... buuuuzzzzzz, wrong answer. The old financially impoverished Tom might have gone that route, but the current... "I don't even want to clean my house, so I pay somebody to do it" Tom went with the "do it now and be done with it", route.
Yeah yeah, I know, throw my money away, but you know what? SO WHAT. I didn't bust my ass all these years to become financially independent, so that I would run around counting every little red cent. I did it, so that I wouldn't have to waste my time doing things I don't want to do, when I can pay someone else to do it for me. I'm sure that many others would have gone the "do it yourself" route, and save some money..... Good for them. That's why I'm glad I live in America, where everyone can do what they want, as long as it doesn't hurt someone else.
Besides, in the end, I didn't have to get my hands dirty, and that new water heater really pumps out the hot water. I took and extra long shower on Tuesday morning, and in my opinion, that was worth every penny :-)
posted by TomH | 3:18 PM
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