Sunday, March 31, 2013

Yeah, That's a Blackrock Holiday

Happy Easter, my lovelies! How was your Easter? Did it feature delicious food? Chocolate in the shape of animals and ovum? Adorable, excited children?

Yeah, ours too. With the added fun of an electrocuted mouse and no hot water.

This always seems to be the way on holidays here. The MiL was running out the door to church this morning and stopped to tell me there was no hot water. None. She suspected maybe the fuse for the water heater had blown somehow. And possibly that fuse was in one of the fuse boxes in the back hall.

I should explain that our stupid-old electrical system includes THREE fuse boxes in the pantry in the back hall AND a breaker box in the cellar. PLUS! There  a couple of things (like the timer on the hot water heater) that appear to be hardwired directly into the electric meter.

It's ridiculously confusing and makes it very hard to figure out where to look when something goes wrong. But A. started poking around in various fuse boxes and found the pretty obvious answer to our problem when he came upon the electrocuted mouse.

FUN!

Once he removed the fried rodent, the water heater commenced heating and all was well. Good thing, since we hosted fifteen people for Easter dinner today and the MiL has been doing dishes for about two hours now.

Oh! AND! I was in the bathroom with Cubby right before dinner, making sure he washed his hands, and the handle for the hot water in the sink came right off on my hand! SUPER FUN. The screw to attach it fell right down through the hole, thereby making it impossible for me to put back on. A. couldn't see an easy way to fix it either, so for the rest of our gathering the handle was just sitting there on the sink. Good thing our guests were mostly just family, and they know how it is here.

There were also some very exciting Easter baskets and things that I have pictures of, but that will have to wait until later. I think we've had enough excitement for today.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just so you know you aren't alone ..I tell my nephew that about 1/2 of what we have is broken. Beth

Anonymous said...

A. should know, and the MiL certainly does, that the cure for a faulty bathroom faucet handle is a small pair of ViseGrips. It is the Woodchuck Way! They can serve for years, if necessary, but are tough on the valve stem splines if the handle is to be properly repaired later.