The Adventures of Fixer Man & Lady Boy Shorts
Friday, June 4, 2010 at 2:26AM 
"sweet big ass grapes, $2.99/pound," Pike's Place Market (Diana, Kodak GC400)
When I bought the single-use charcoal grill last weekend for $6.99, I had no idea it would end up costing me $833, forcing me to wear booty-creeper underwear for two days, and requiring me to fill the bathtub with water so we could flush poo down the toilets.
Here's what happened.
Wasps have transformed our broken-down, rusted-out gas grill into a condo unit. In fact, the buggers are trying to redevelop the whole back of my house into waspville utopia, a land that is neither white nor Anglo-Saxon nor Protestant. While we work out an extermination and replacement plan, my husband misses cooking out. So I bought some burgers and dogs (meaty for him, veggie for me) and a small disposable grill for our Memorial Day festivities.
Before placing the pint-sized grill on the fireproof mat that used to sit beneath the rusted-out fire pit (rust is a motif on our patio), James decided he needed to hose things down. But we'd left the hose and the nozzle out all winter, so instead of a spray he got a spit of water. When he tried to turn off the outdoor spigot, he discovered that the valve was stripped and would not catch. So the only thing keeping water from shooting out the side of the house was the hose, which would surely burst if left in this condition for too long -- as we have seen in the past. (By now you should see a general pattern of ineptitude with our outdoor housekeeping commitment and abilities. It's slightly better inside the house.)
The next day James put on his Fixer Man cape and made two trips to Lowe's, intent on replacing the stripped valve. Only Lowe's didn't have the replacement piece, so he had to replace the whole spigot. It was hard work twisting and twisting the spigot out of the wall, but the ginormous blue wrench he'd bought did the trick. Sure did: It twisted the copper pipe in two and pulled the whole damn thing out of the wall. Take that copper pipe!
Wait. What do you mean the pipe is broken? Shouldn't you have just unscrewed one pipe from the other? Oh, look at that silvery stuff. The pipes were soldered together. Oh, look at that. Hm. We can't fix this ourselves now, can we? No, my dear, no we can't.
Fortunately, I'd filled the bathtub with water and bought my body weight in bottled H20 before we turned off the house's water supply for Fixer Man's Adventures. (Yes, we checked for a shut-off valve leading to the outside spigot. No, there wasn't one.)
Did you know you can flush a toilet with no running water by filling up the back of said toilet with water from your bathtub? You can. This comes in handy when you have no running water and two people who will eventually need the bathroom for something more than a tinkle, if-you-know-what-I'm-saying-and-I-think-that-you-do.
For days before this I'd been walking around the house saying, "I need to do laundry. I'm running out of underwear." On the day that I bought the disposable grill, I showered and put on my last clean pair of underwear, cute little boycut shorts that are not meant for my body type. These cute little boyshorts tell me that they're not meant for me every time I move by riding up and over and in. This is their way of saying, "We don't belong here! Get us out of HEEERE! Halp!" It's like a panty revolt. They also say, "Ha-ha! Wedgie!"
I'd had the foresight to fill up the bathtub with water, in case we needed it. But I didn't have the foresight to do some friggin' laundry, in case I wanted to put on clean gutchies that weren't trying to tunnel their way into my body.
But there are plumbers. Yay for plumbers! Double yay for those who come the same day! And charge you $833! No, wait. That last one is bad. Boo for the $833 plumbers! Woe for Fixer Man and his inept sidekick Lady Boy Shorts who just wanted to clean off their patio and cook out on a cheapass charcoal grill and pretend they were real patriotic adults who could function like real homeowners. Boo! Woe! Or: Woo! Boe!
In truth, the spigot was bound to break at some point. Whoever installed it (not us -- yay for that!) used a plastic thingy instead of a metal thingy, and the thingy cracked, probably due to the intense temperature fluctuations of winter/summer here in our neck of the woods. Buying the grill and trying to hose down the patio just spurred on the destruction. And the ginormous blue wrench? Fixer Man has taken full responsibility for that one. And Lady Boy Shorts didn't yell at him once. She feels pretty good about that part.
Unanswered questions left over from our saga: Were we fleeced by the plumber? Will Lady Boy Shorts do laundry more often? Will she buy some underwear that fits? Will she let Fixer Man near that ginormous blue wrench again?
If you know the answer to the first one, don't tell me. I don't want to know.
Reader Comments (13)
you two and duke and i appear to have the same approach when it comes to the maintenance stuff of the home only when things get really bad, i take my boy short self off to the coffeeshop/bookstore because i am of the ostrich variety ;-)
glad its all fixed now ... well except for those pesky wasps, xoxo
i've got similar issues with smalls that actually fit and aren't doing all that your cute, but uncomfortable boy shorts were doing...if you'd like a rec I'd be happy to share.
i'm never sure of the whole plumber/electrician thing, but I do wonder sometimes if I should look into trade school, don a cute tool belt and hang up a shingle.
wink. xo
Had us laughing out loud over here!!
Thanks for the story. It was a great way to start our day!
:-D
The only thing that could of made this story most diasterously funny would be if wasps had come streaming out of the hose instead of water. (A la, our fireplace on Eden's 5th birthday party!)
Thanks for making us smile. (And glad you survived.)
Love,
R
Yours,
Megan