HOME IMPROVEMENT KARMA

It’s always a special feeling when I can bring my unique breed of home improvement ineptitude into other people’s lives.

Recently, my father-in-law was the recipient of my negative home improvement karma, something that I have worked on for many years to perfect.

We were preparing for an evening out, when I made the foolish mistake of going for a glass of water. I should know by now that the best way to make it out of a house without breaking something is not to touch anything. I have this incredible talent for doing remarkable amounts of damage to household objects with only the slightest of efforts.

But I was thirsty, and opted for a glass of water. And you can guess what happened next. That’s right – the roof fell in.

No, kidding. What happened was the water decided running was far more fun and would not cut off. The faucet handles would just spin and spin and spin, never changing the flow of the water. We needed to find a quick solution, since we had dinner reservations fast approaching. The immediate solution that my father-in-law agreed upon was to shut all of the water to the house. We would deal with it when we got home.

We were pretty much congratulating ourselves on our brilliance when it was pointed out to us that my daughter was staying at the house with a friend, and leaving them for the next four hours was not only unwise, but kinda mean as well.

“Oh, like you can’t go four hours without water. What are you, a cod?” was my thought. On one of those rare occasions, however, my Moronic Comment Filter functioned properly and I kept my mouth closed.

So my father-in-law set off on several other avenues of repair, all of which were going to result in (a) the water continuing to run and (b) other things getting broken. Both results, we’re pretty sure, were not what we were gunning for.

As our reservations crept closer, the other folks began to see the whole house water shut-off as a pretty sound option. (“Who’s the genius? ME!!!! I RULE!!!” Again, score points for the Filter.)

So we left for the evening with the house a veritable desert. My father-in-law and I discussed numerous options for repair throughout the evening. Once he realized I was merely recounting MacGyver plotlines, he decided it was time for me to no longer help.

When we got back from dinner, we found that everything had gone fine without water. Granted, our friend bathed our daughter in a mud puddle out back, but what are you gonna do?

It was now around 11 pm, and we decided it was time to wrestle this problem to the ground, get it in a headlock, and make it cry like a little girl. Playtime was over. Our first move – cut the water back on, because our friend REALLY needed the use of a functioning water system at this point.

But as soon as that was out of the way, we set off to fix the problem. We both stared intently at the faucet knobs, wondering if maybe they were maybe going to whisper the solution to us. Finally, my father-in-law spoke. “We need to go to the store.”

This is like the ultimate home improvement solution. The industry has gotten so specialized that you can go to most any hardware store and find the remedy for whatever is ailing. Basically, we were expecting to find the “Your Water Won’t Stop Running and the Knobs Keep Turning and Your Friend Almost Had a Serious Bladder Issue Kit” somewhere on the plumbing aisle. Well, that may very well exist, but this was well after the hardware stores were closed, and we were forced instead to go to a –Mart store. And, as you can imagine, a few days before school starts, the main thing in these stores is not plumbing equipment. It’s Christmas decorations.

So we left the store, rather dejected. We decided we would get up first thing in the morning and tackle the problem. And I’m sure both of us were thinking that, as the only men in the house, we were in a little less of a bathroom bind than the women. Those are just the evolutionary breaks, I suppose.

When we returned home, we began gearing up for the next morning. As my father-in-law was looking in a drawer, he noticed something that maybe, just maybe, might be useful – two new knobs for the sink. “Hey, I guess I bought these a while back and never installed them!” he said WAY too cheerily for almost midnight.

Sure enough, in about two minutes, the knobs were installed and we were shutting the water on and off at will. (As an added bonus, we got to use Walkie-Talkies while cutting the water on to the house, so that was really cool.)

In the end, it was a huge victory. We identified a problem, solved the problem, and generally saved the day. All of the other folks in the house were glad to have the water back on and working properly. Especially my daughter, since the mud was starting to cake.