Gloria Ferris

Odd how sometimes events that have no connection bring back memories long forgotten. Last week, we sprung a gas leak to the furnace.  These things never happen at opportune times and this time was again very inconvenient.  Tim called Brian,  the ”B” in B.McDermott Plumbing and asked for emergency service due to the fact that we were to have the coldest weather recorded this winter very shortly.  By the way, Brian has to be by far the most professional and efficient plumber I have ever met.  And. I have met many over the years.  You meet many electricians and plumbers over the years when you have a hundred year old house.  Brian said that he would be there as soon as he could.  Needless to say, we couldn’t wait because we needed to be somewhere else. A friend agreed to be there when Brian arrived, we left a check to be filled in when the job was done, and off we went trusting that Brian would perform his magic and not break the bank with the repairs that needed to be done.

We arrived home to a warm and toasty house, tired but happy that we had not cancelled our committment we had made prior to the gas leak.  What a surprise when another thing was warm and toasty as well–the toilet seat!!  And this is where the walk down memory lane begins.  When I first bought our home in 1983, I lived alone with my dog.  Every holiday we travelled home to see my family.  That Thanksgiving was no exception even though we had only been in our new house for a little over a month and half and we were still surrounded by boxes and paint cans.  I turned down the heat and off we went.   

 After surviving a blizzard and record low temperatures for November, my dog and I arrived home two days late, but safe and sound.  I turned up the heat, curled up in a blanket with a good book, and immediately fell asleep.  I awakened to a dog barking at the bathroom door where strange hissing sounds were erupting.  I opened the door and discovered that while we were gone the pipes had frozen and I was faced with water all over the bathroom and a huge plumbing bill.  After the plumbers left,  I sat down on a warm and toasty toilet seat for the first time. 

 Now, you might think that this is a good idea.  Let me tell you it is not.  There is a lot of maintenance that goes with “the warm and toasty toilet seat”.  The biggest probelm is the condensation associated with a steaming toilet bowl.  When I told my coworkers, they gave me a funny look and moved away from me.  None of them offered help.  I called the plumber and he told me “Look, lady, that isn’t possible. We didn’t do anything that would cause that.”  I tried to tell him I wasn’t blaming him, but I needed help with this problem.  He then quoted me his rates which were just as exhorbitant as the first time he recited them to me.  By this time, I was starting to believe that I had had a bump on the head and was hallucinating as so many people seemed to think.  

I immediately called my mother because as we all know mothers offer unconditional love and reassurance that you are not crazy–everyone’s mother except my mother.  Her response was”  Are you sure?”  I asked her what she thought I was unsure of Did she think that the warm sensation I felt every time I sat down on the toilet was a figment of my imagination?  Did she think that something else was causing my warm rear?  Just what was I to be sure of?  Needless to say, when she heard the distress in my voice she immediately switched gears, and said “Call your father, Dear.  He will help you.”

I did, and he did.  He never batted an eye.  After he quit laughing, he simply said, you need to go to the basement and check the shut off valves to the toilet.  There should be a red one that will be for the hot water that is going to the toilet tank.  Shut that off and your problem should be solved. Sounds easy, right?  Well, it wasn’t. There was no red shut off valve.  So my father had to walk me through following the pipes from the hot water tank to various parts of the house until I found the one to the toilet tank.  One time briefly, in the 1990’s Tim thought we should try it again, but it was again a miserable experience with the girls complaining more than me and we again shut down the spa in the bathroom.

And now here we are back to the present day, and Brian has turned the valve that heats the water that makes the toilet sweat like a construction worker on a humid, 90 degree day in Cleveland. Tim thinks that if we just keep the toilet seat up at all times, the problem will be solved. Doesn’t work because I can’t remember to put the toilet seat up when I am finished.  After four days of being constantly reminded that the toilet seat must be in the UP position I have had it.  I have lived with this man for twenty-three years and I have never insisted that the toilet seat be kept DOWN,  but suddenly I needed to remember that it must be kept UP.  Personally, I have always thought that this constant man-woman, up-down debate has been elevated to an importance that it just does not deserve.  I still  feel that way, and have convinced Tim that we need to kill the experiment. We are back to our cold, but less controversial toilet seat and peace reigns supreme in our electronic cottage.   

This entry was posted on Monday, January 22nd, 2007 at 10:51 am and is filed under Cleveland, quality of life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.