Muscle Memory
sosoclever and I did some plumbing this week.
Our kitchen sink has dripped for ten or twelve years. We had gotten to rely on it; if we only needed to moisten a cloth to wipe something, we held it under the drip for a few seconds, and if we wanted to rinse a can or a bottle we set it under the drip and let it fill. On top of that, the hot water handle turned both ways, with "off" in the middle, because a tiny bit of plastic had snapped off.
We could tell time by the drip!
Last week, the drip became a trickle. I think it was somewhere between a half and one and a half gallons per hour.
To make a long story short, we went out and bought the stem/seat washer cartridge thingies and fixed the sink.
The problem is . . . now it doesn't drip! What do we do?!? We used that drip, that fault in the plumbing system, for a dozen different things that aren't adequately replaced by turning the water on a trickle! And when we do turn the water on, we find ourselves lingering with our hands on the handle, waiting to jiggle the drip down to the most tolerable we can get . . . and waiting . . . and waiting . . . until we remember it's turned off!
Our kitchen sink has dripped for ten or twelve years. We had gotten to rely on it; if we only needed to moisten a cloth to wipe something, we held it under the drip for a few seconds, and if we wanted to rinse a can or a bottle we set it under the drip and let it fill. On top of that, the hot water handle turned both ways, with "off" in the middle, because a tiny bit of plastic had snapped off.
We could tell time by the drip!
Last week, the drip became a trickle. I think it was somewhere between a half and one and a half gallons per hour.
To make a long story short, we went out and bought the stem/seat washer cartridge thingies and fixed the sink.
The problem is . . . now it doesn't drip! What do we do?!? We used that drip, that fault in the plumbing system, for a dozen different things that aren't adequately replaced by turning the water on a trickle! And when we do turn the water on, we find ourselves lingering with our hands on the handle, waiting to jiggle the drip down to the most tolerable we can get . . . and waiting . . . and waiting . . . until we remember it's turned off!