Trying to Recover

I'm writing this because I don't want to leave off negative today. I was feeling kind of cheered when I got up two hours ago. It's just that I just hate it when things go wrong. Especially when they go wrong because of me, which is usually the case. Perhaps I assume too much. Certainly, I expect too much from the inanimate. I expect the appliances in my house to work on command without complaint. And every time something breaks I am painfully reminded that that just doesn't happen, Ducky.

What's seems so odd about things breaking, failing or behaving in manner contrary to expectations is that it always happens when something "important" is at stake. I put "important" in quotation marks because the truth is, so little of what we believe to be important actually is. A case in point.

Just a few weeks ago I turned on the shower with the anticipation of standing under a nice, hot waterfall. I let the water run (I hate having to let the water run, but it can take five minutes for the hot water down in the utility room to reach the shower up in the master bath, and I really do not like taking cold showers) for the appropriate amount of time and then checked the water for warmth. There was none. I've drank ice water that didn't feel that cold.

I turned the water off and went down to the half bath next to the front door. This is directly above the hot water heater below so the water from this faucet warms up nicely. Only it didn't. I went down to the utility room to check the hot water heater. It was still there. That was about the extent of my ability to detect problems. I lay down on the floor and tried to see if the pilot was on. I didn't see any flame (gas appliance), but having never looked for one before I wasn't sure I could see it. I didn't smell gas, but caution provoked me to turn the supply to the heater off. I debated about attempting to relight the pilot myself, but I kept thinking about the man in Independence who died in his sleep when his hot water heater exploded in the basement and shot up through his house like a rocket. By unfortunate coincidence the heater had been located directly under the man's bedroom. Not wishing to blow up either myself or the house, I called the local plumber. He came out and relit the thing in about two minutes. He also tested the automatic shutoff thingy to see if perhaps it was damaged. Since he was there anyway, I had him fix the dripping faucets. I watched him do it. He used an allen wrench and some other kind of tool. Between the pilot and the faucets I don't think he spent fifteen minutes. It cost me $100 for this work. Not that it wasn't worth it. I didn't know how easy it was to fix the faucets - or turn on the pilot. He was very polite, too. When I asked what I should do if the pilot went out again, he very nicely told me that since I had watched him push the button to relight it, now I could do it myself and save myself the money.

I really do hate being stupid. And afraid. Damn.