Not That I Needed It Or Anything...

Have you ever tried to wash your armpit, or the back of your neck (or the front of your neck, for that matter) without getting a drop of freezing water on any other part of your goosebumpy body? The resultant contusions – I mean contortions! – are Cirque-du-Soleil-worthy…

The Kid never came yesterday to fix the water heater, but it’s not his fault. I told him not to. He had told me in the morning that he had a family thing to go to, so he didn’t know what time he’d make it over, but he swore I’d have a hot shower this morning.

I’m so used to people just not showing up that I took this statement with a grain of salt, and I wasn’t surprised when 5:00 rolled around and there was no sign of him. I didn’t even have the heart to hold it against him. It was Sunday, after all, and it’s not like the faulty water heater was his fault.

But damned if he didn’t call at 5:04, apologizing, and saying he was on his way.

I put him on hold for a second and asked Johnny if it was okay if I told him not to come. Johnny didn’t care: he was watching the last fifteen minutes of The Illusionist. I could have asked for anything and he’d’ve said “yeah yeah yeah.”

Dang. I should’ve asked for anything! Eh. Like what? Anything I want that I can’t have it’s not because my husband says so. Well, except maybe for this (yes I could have that if it weren’t for my husband – yes I could).

So anyway I told the Kid to just stay home. I could have one cold shower on a hot August morning, I wouldn’t freeze to death. He did the whole “are you sure are you sure are you sure?” thing, and when I convinced him that I was, he offered as how maybe Johnny could go down and try to light it one last time. “Sometimes,” he said, “you never know.”

Now, Johnny doesn’t know anymore about these sorts of things than I do. I could have been the one to go downstairs. But I didn’t want to. It’s as simple as that. So I handed him the phone. With, now, five minutes left in The Illusionist. The kid hands Giamatti the book and runs away, and I hand John the phone.

He gave me such a look!

Needless to say, he wasn’t listening to the Kid’s instructions. I paid close attention to the movie (even though I’d seen it once before) so I could tell him exactly what had happened in the minutes that he missed, but when he hung up and I told him, he said “I know I know.”

Which meant: “would you ever shut up already so I can at least watch the last two minutes in peace!?”

When it ended, he turned to me.

“He wants me to go down and try to start it.”

I say don’t bother, hon. It’s not like luck is usually on our side.

“But he wants me to call him back and tell him how it went.”

Yeah, so?

“So call him and just say I tried it and it didn’t work?”

Yep.

So that’s what we did. If we tried it and it had worked, I would have avoided the cold shower, but I’d still want the faulty part replaced. And anyway (Home Hint from the AssVac!), trying to light pilots when you don’t know what you’re doing is really never exactly a good idea.

Johnny will probably fess up when he gets here, but this morning I had to shimmy around with the hand-held shower nozzle, whooping and hollering for reason not at all related to its quadruple-head massage.


I dreamed last night I asked the Kid about the spiderweb tattoo, and he told me it’s because he’s from Virginia.

Whatever that’s supposed to mean…