Tuesday, November 8, 2005

He's The Man!


Ok, time to stroke the hubby! He's "The Man!" A Jack-of-all-trades! He's a Correctional Officer by day, but at home he's a mechanic AND a plumber! He does more than that, but those were his roles he was playing these past two days. And I'm so proud to have him as MY husband! Nothing for this woman to worry about. Something broke? He can fix it!

Sunday we were on our way to a friend's home. Thankfully we were in town still when it felt like the bottom of the car (under the hood) fell out! I thought it was a flat, but didn't hear that familiar thumpity-thump of the deflated rubber slapping the road. I heard metal scraping, though. Ugh.... Ends up the Ball Joint broke. "Oh, so that's why our car squealed when we turned the wheel while driving the car..." I thought to myself. Being broker than broke, this was not a good thing to happen though. I don't know how hubby arranged it, but he paid for the tow to our house ('cause we couldn't drive it!) and yesterday he found out it was only $19 for a replacement ball joint. $19 doesn't sound like much to most people but to someone with no money, it's a lot. Again, I don't know where the money came from (sometimes ignorance is bliss) but letting him take care of it, he acquired that ball joint. Such a little part, but it took two days to get it on the car. Well, actually, a lot of time was spent chiseling off a nut to take the tire off the car before replacing the ball joint! One of the lugs had a key to unlock the nut but the key BROKE OFF in the keyhole! So then Tommy had to chisel off the nut and that took a lot of time yesterday.

But today he finished the project and our car is fixed! Yay!!! (I told hubby he oughta be a mechanic. He agreed with "I oughta! That was a $200 job!" Well, what's stoppin' ya, Baby! Perhaps now is the time for you to be considering a career change!)

Today our kitchen sink finally stopped up, clogged up, whatever you want to call it. Hot water wasn't helping, baking soda and vinegar didn't help (I'm not a big user of those caustic chemicals to unclog drains), and finally today there was just no drainage at all! Running the dishwasher and washing a load of dishes simply filled our two sinks full of dishwasher water! That was interesting. Thankfully, the dishwasher finished before the sinks were overflowing! ha ha! (oh, don't worry - I was watching that water level!)

Our sink is right in front of the kitchen window. So after several trips to the back door with a pitcher of dirty water to throw out the back door into the shrubbery, hubby took the screen off the window, and using a tube hose normally used to clean out fish tanks, we drained the two sinks right out the kitchen window into our shrubs! That was interesting, too!

Then putting a pan under the pipes, hubby took the traps apart. Unfortunately, the clog wasn't there. It ended up being WAY DOWN in the pipe, down under the house! Ugh! After some unsuccessfuly pushing and prodding with the fish tank hosing down into the pipe, hubby brought in the water hose from outside! Uh oh! Do any visions of funny commercials or sitcoms come to mind when you picture a man doing his own indoor plumbing job with an outdoor water hose? They came to MY mind!!!

Well, he didn't make too much of a mess and there weren't big geysers shooting out from under the sink (just little ones...) The wood under the sink was getting waterlogged. But about the time we decided that even that kind of water pressure was not having any effect on the clog, we discovered it actually was! The clog was gone! Yippee! So hubby put the pipes back together under the sink and we now had sinks that drain! Can you say "simple pleasures"?!

Just like the tank lever that broke on our toilet last week...no flushing the toilet without reaching into that cold water-filled tank and pulling the chain ourselves! Yick! So when hubby replaced the broken PLASTIC lever with a METAL one, I felt very happy. Who knew not being able to flush the toilet could cause such stress on a person? Or sinks that won't drain? Simple things mean alot! Maybe he'll miraculously find a way to replace that tub in the bathroom, too! The one whose bottom is cracking! I can only IMAGINE what sort of water damage is occuring to the floor underneath....

Anyway! Not only is my hubby a mechanic, I've discovered that he's a plumber, too! Sometimes being dirt poor (that's about how we're feeling lately) can cause our hidden talents to shine! Of course, I've always known he'll try and fix anything he can. Not the kind of man that likes to take things apart and puts it back together with parts left over. But the kind of man who figures if it isn't working anyway, he certainly can't hurt it anymore by taking it apart and trying to fix it himself! The first time he wanted to take my CD player apart to figure out why the CDs weren't playing, I about had a fit telling him "No! You'll break it!" Well, duh! It's not working anyway! And you know, after taking it apart, cleaning the lens, putting it back together, IT WORKED! Yay! So at a later time, when he wanted to open up my computer to figure out why it wasn't working, I didn't tell the "He-knows-nothing-about-computers!"-man "NO!!!" And again, he shined! He had it working when he put it back together again! Isn't he the greatest? I'm sure glad I married him....my mechanic, plumber, computer technician, carpenter, builder, electrician..."whatever job needs doing, he's the man" kinda man.

1 comment:

Tina said...

If my hubby didn't fix cars, plumbing problems, etc, we would have to spend waay too much money getting it all fixed. And I would probably have to go back to work and leave my baby with someone else. (He even colors my hair!) At $50 a shot at the salon, he tried it and now he does it all the time. I cut their hair, so it's a trade off. The ways we try to save money... :)
Very nice post about the hubby. :)