The Heat is On. (Or, “My Wife is Better Than Yours” vol. MCMXXI)

Uggghhhhhh.

I’ve caught the dreaded Lurgy.

I woke up on Monday with a skritchity feeling in my throat, and as the day went on “skritchity” advanced to “flames”.

I was sick. Am sick.

Here’s a silly bit of trivia about morning drive radio jobs: you’re highly discouraged from calling out sick when you’re sick. If when I wake at 3am I determine I have a cold or a missing limb or something and would like a day to recoup (or regrow), I have to phone my Program Director – who does NOT normally wake at 3am – and then he has to call various people in the hopes that one of them will wake at 3am, drive to Armpit, NJ, and immediately start yakking away all bright and chipper as if they weren’t still in the pajamas they didn’t have time to change out of.

I don’t call out sick.

But I’m sick.

And so on Monday, because I was sick and really wanted a steaming hot shower to break up the concrete in my lungs, of course our water heater broke. I had just gotten home from work and was literally just beginning the traditional Pathetic Sick Husband Whine to NewWifey(tm) when we were startled by a loud “KLANK – BANG!” from the basement. NewWifey(tm) immediately leaped out of her chair and sprinted down the stairs. “Oh, shiiiiiiit” was all I heard.

She came trudging back up the stairs with a look of resigned acceptance. “It’s dead” she said. “We need a new water heater.”

As the husband and Man of the House, I knew exactly what she expected me to do.

“Well, I’m going to bed” I said. And I did. NewWifey(tm) neither expects, nor desires, my help in these matters. I retreated to the bedroom to play Animal Crossing on my DSi until the NyQuil-and-Gin cocktail kicked in and I drifted off to sleep.

When I got up at 3am for work I went into the bathroom and saw this:

Don’t pee?? That’s like saying “don’t watch porn”. It’s a biological imperative!

I lifted the lid. There was pee and toilet paper in there. Aha. I knew what was going on.

I went out into the kitchen and sure enough there was another note taped to the sink:

“Honey – I drove to Lowe’s and bought a new water heater last night. But when I installed it I found the intake valve at the top was bad. I won’t be able to buy one til later today, so until then we have no running water at all. If you have to pee, use the back bathroom and don’t flush. Or go write in the snow – see how many digits of pi you can get up to. I’ll use the front bathroom. Thanks.”

I walked down the stairs and into the garage, where I saw this:

That’s the old water heater. She’s already yanked it out. The new one is in the box on the right, ready to go.

When I came home that afternoon I walked through the basement and saw this:

That was a good sign.

So I walked upstairs and into the front bathroom.

Where I saw this:

So I did. Finally got my nice hot shower, too.

It’s nice having a husband around the house.

(BTW, for those of you who are interested: I made it to 3.1415926535897932 before dribbling. Top that, ladies.)

Bonus Footage:

I wish I’d been there to take a picture of my little Flower of Womanhood while she was manhandling that new water heater into position and hooking it up. But I wasn’t, so instead I’ll reprise a picture I posted previously of her replacing the exhaust in our Ford Escape. Gives you an idea why I don’t interfere – if you interrupt an expert, you can only make matters worse, right? (BTW, that’s her natural eye color):

Ok, gotta wrap this up and do Man of the House stuff. Dinner doesn’t make itself, you know. And I still have to decide on place settings for next month’s quilting bee with my buddies. You women have no idea what we go through….

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