Friday, January 9, 2009

I'm an Airhead and a Spendthrift......



I feel like a complete idiot. Why you ask am I making such a broad self depreciating statement? Well stick around a minute and I’ll tell you, but first I need to fill you in on a little background.

Last night Wheeler came home from wrestling practice and headed upstairs for his usual long teenager shower. Those of you with teen know what I mean. When he finished we ate dinner and then I washed the dishes. OK nothing unusual yet. I found that no matter how long I let the water run, it never warmed up. At the time, I thought Wheels had used all the hot water and chalked dishes washed in cold water up to living in the house with a teen aged boy.

Fast forward to bed time. As I ran the water to warm it up so I could wash my face, I discovered, yep you guessed it, still no hot water. A trip to the basement revealed the pilot light was out. OK, no biggy, I can light a pilot light. I’ve done so before, although not on this particular appliance. In fact, in my younger days I lived in a apartment with only a gas space heater and a stick to control the temperature. If I’d waited for the maintenance guy to light the pilot light in the fall, I’d have frozen to death. But I digress; back to the story at hand. It was late, I was tired, and apparently uncoordinated. After some cussing, I decided that something was in fact really wrong with my 4 year old hot water heater as the stupid thing wouldn’t light and stay lit.

Fast forward to this morning. Yep, you guessed right again, I just paid a plumber $175 to light my hot water heater's pilot light. I still don’t know why it went out. The plumber was a nice guy and tried to make me feel less like a dumb ass. Why it wouldn’t light for me I'll never know and I could kick myself for not trying again after a good night sleep. So now can you see why I feel like a complete idiot?!?


8 comments:

Patti said...

Oh my, don't beat yourself up about it. I imagine he'll take his wife out to dinner tonight on behalf of your patronage.

Alex said...

And thus you have done your part to stimulate the economy- what a good American you are.

Michelle said...

Well that stinks!
Don't feel bad though. I have done airhead stuff like this before and probably will again. That's the beautiful thing about life, you live and learn. =)

Addie said...

Zan, don't feel like an Airhead at all. As you may remember, I went without hot water for a FULL WEEK because of a faulty part that wouldn't let the pilot light stay lit. If it happens again, it could be your thermal coupler, thermal switch, or your flux capacitor. :-) I hope you don't have any more problems, because it surely isn't fun. I'd pay any sum to avoid that again.

Addie

Zan said...

Thanks for the moral support!! I just hate feeling like I wasted money because, instead of trying again in the morning, I jumped to conclusions. I think I'll adopt Alex's attitude and convince myself that I was just being patriotic :-)!

Hopefully the darn thing will stay lit once and for all and I can forget all about this incident.

Life With Dogs said...

Electric hot water heaters rule....in this case :)

Heather said...

He should have lied to you and said that it was a special Dynoliter that was necessary and a button had to be pushed and that it was all set for next time. And you shouldn't have any more problems relighting it ;). Well, that's my story - or that's what I would have told my husband anyway :)

Maria Peters said...

My husband has this saying that used to irritate me, but I find myself saying it now..."it is what it is". I'm looking forward to "teenage showers"...my tween is a water conservationist to an extreme. Ewww.