“Love hurts
Love scars
Love wounds and marks…”
There may be long periods of time when everything is OK,
bright and flowing, with little more than routine maintenance required.
Then, BOOM!
Feces hit the fan.
This little fountain is like that. She sits quietly in our
front garden, happily gurgling away, loving life, and I love it back. In fact,
I see the fountain as a metaphor for my own life. When it is up and running
well, so am I. When I get up in the middle of the night, I go look out at it
from the bay window, seeking reassurance that all is well.
Two nights ago, it wasn’t. Sitting down slowly, I took my
blood pressure and was pleased to find that I was still alive.
Certainly, more than just routine maintenance would be
required though. The pump had died.
RIP pump!
Having encountered this once before, I knew what I had to
do.
So I bought a new pump from the plant nursery that sold me the fountain ten years ago. Stopped at Ace Hardware for waterproof caulk and some Crazy Glue to securely attach the hose to the pump.
With growing pride in my ability to do such manly stuff
myself, I thought of my car restoring friend and another friend who builds world renown goat
barns. Now those guys are real men.
They can fix or make anything.
I’ve always said that if I’m good in this life, I’m coming
back as a hot woman with plans to marry a guy who can do stuff. Manly stuff… like
fix things.
Poor Carla took a bad bet in choosing me. I don’t know how
to really do anything other than talk, and that’s mostly bullshit. (Actually, I
guess I would have made a good priest or politician at that.)
Back to work.
After cleaning the fountain and removing the old pump, I let
everything dry out. An experienced handyman like myself knows how important
that is if you want to start over, like new.
With caulk and glue in hand, I ripped a piece of cardboard
off an old box from the trash. That would give me a disposable surface to put
the opened glue on to contain any mess.
Once outside, with materials laid out neatly as organized
men do, I managed to reassemble all parts.
Everything was properly caulked, almost ready to add water
and flip the breaker back on.
Just needed to put one small dab of Crazy Glue on the hose
where it attaches to the pump. The pressure has blown the hose off in the past.
Just one drop away from an enviable victory!
After piercing the nipple of the Crazy Glue with a long
nail, I squeezed ever so slightly to get that one little drop. Apparently, the
glue had hardened near the top, so I squeezed a bit harder…and harder. That’s
when the back seam of the tube blew open. An entire tube of Crazy poured into
my cupped hands.
The next hour was fun.
My fingers were glued to each other,
giving me matching paddle hands. Both paddles were glued tightly to each other.
That piece of cardboard was stuck to the back of my wrist along with a dripping
tube of glue and a nail.
Have you ever tried to open a door with your elbows? The
glue tube had one last trick to perform though, it dribbled down my forearm and
glued both elbows together.
It is possible to turn a doorknob with your mouth. Rough on
the teeth, but possible.
Once inside the utility room, I added a can of paint remover
to the decorative collection stuck tightly to my hands and arms.
A full hour of bathing in paint remover, wiping, scrubbing,
tearing off skin I was fond of, swearing and pushing my drooping eyeglasses
back up onto my nose by mashing my face painfully up against the washing
machine every few minutes…priceless!
The paint remover fumes were worth it though. I usually pay
big bucks for a high that intense.
And now? My fountain works perfectly. It's beautiful. I checked on it
several times throughout the night.
The bottom line here is that my manly car restoring and goat
barn building friends have company.
I’m a manly man too.
(And very happy that when my hands were wet with Crazy Glue,
that I didn't need to pee. That could be a very awkward visit to the ER...)
