Old House Blues

Why is it that every time Dan goes out of town, one of our household appliances fails me? Just a couple of months ago while Dan was ice climbing in New Hampshire, our heater went caput....and we were very, very cold. This weekend he had a caving group over in Highland County and our hot water heater went on the fritz.....just when I REALLY wanted a nice, hot shower. I decided to take matters into my own hands (since I really had no other choice.) I hopped out of the shower and trudged down to the dark, cold basement. I gave myself a quick tutorial on hot water heaters, thanks to the owners manual that was so handily attached to the device. Armed with a flashlight and screw driver, I proceeded to turn the hot water temperature up another ten degrees. Back upstairs I went....with the kids naptime countdown clock ticking....for attempt #2 at a hot shower. No luck. I slid into my warm slippers, threw a towel around me and huffed back down to the basement. I figured this time if my handyman skills didn't fix it, I was out of luck. So back upstairs I went for shower attempt #3. Forget about it. The kids desperately needed to be bathed this evening as well, so I decided to do things the old fashioned way. I boiled a large pot of water which was then poured into the cold bathwater......a slight improvement. While we may still be cold, we are at least clean! Oh....perhaps I should also mention that earlier this week we ran out of water in our cistern, so I was without water for about 24 hours or so. Such is life in an old farm house!