This Old House (or) Living in the Godforsaken MIDDLE AGES for CRYING OUT LOUD
I've been a little cranky today.
"Not enough coffee, Allison?" you ask. "Surely," you reassure, "it's just all this overcast weather." "Maybe," you optimistically suggest, "it's because it's President's Day, a theoretical fake-type Long Weekend Holiday, and you are At Work."
Well, I hate to tell you this, helpful as you are, but it's not any of those things. It's something else. Something different. Something special. You see, there's something that sets me apart.
There's a time machine in my bathroom.
That's right, a real, honest-to-God time machine.
How does it work, you ask?
Simple.
All I have to do is turn the hot water on, and it comes out cold. The time machine accelerates the natural entropic properties of the water, making it as if the water had been sitting long enough to become lukewarm, or even downright chilly.
Are there other ways to use my time machine? Of course there are.
I can try flushing my master-bathroom toilet, for example. The toilet is instantly transferred to the date of the house's construction, sometime around 1890. It splutters, flusters, spins my bathroom waste in an energetic circle, and then follows that up with a brisk round of almost nothing else.
Now, granted, the time machine doesn't work all of the time. But it is about 80% effective - which you will agree is a very high success ratio, given that it is both malevolent and invisible.
I should say that I'm not totally without recourse in my battle against the entropic actions of the Porcelain Wayback. If I shower at really odd times, the water often comes out hot and soothing, with respectable water pressure. If I flush the toilet with the precision and delicacy of a fifth-dan black belt, everything goes just fine.
But this morning things changed. To use the euphemistic terminology that the American Government might employ, the "situation escalated." There I was, blow-drying my hair after washing it in the frigid water of the sink, when my grooming experience was totally interrupted. Without so much as a pop, crackle, or self-respecting ZZzzzzt, off went the dryer. And the lights. And, in fact, all the electricity. My bathroom time machine has transported me and my entire house all the way back to the FREAKING MIDDLE AGES.
Now I probably just need to be patient. The hot water will come back. The time machine can't intimidate it forever.
And the electricity? Well, surely all I'll need to do is flip a circuit breaker somewhere in what, as you all may recall, is the World's Creepiest Basement. While avoiding the soul-devouring creatures I know live by my laundry room. And because it's a fake-type holiday, I'm sure I can leave work a little early to get that done in the daylight.
But, if the situation escalates, the only remedy I can imagine is some sort of Wellesian exorcism involving toilet flappers, electromagnets, and chicken blood.
Please, universe, don't let it come to that.
"Not enough coffee, Allison?" you ask. "Surely," you reassure, "it's just all this overcast weather." "Maybe," you optimistically suggest, "it's because it's President's Day, a theoretical fake-type Long Weekend Holiday, and you are At Work."
Well, I hate to tell you this, helpful as you are, but it's not any of those things. It's something else. Something different. Something special. You see, there's something that sets me apart.
There's a time machine in my bathroom.
That's right, a real, honest-to-God time machine.
How does it work, you ask?
Simple.
All I have to do is turn the hot water on, and it comes out cold. The time machine accelerates the natural entropic properties of the water, making it as if the water had been sitting long enough to become lukewarm, or even downright chilly.
Are there other ways to use my time machine? Of course there are.
I can try flushing my master-bathroom toilet, for example. The toilet is instantly transferred to the date of the house's construction, sometime around 1890. It splutters, flusters, spins my bathroom waste in an energetic circle, and then follows that up with a brisk round of almost nothing else.
Now, granted, the time machine doesn't work all of the time. But it is about 80% effective - which you will agree is a very high success ratio, given that it is both malevolent and invisible.
I should say that I'm not totally without recourse in my battle against the entropic actions of the Porcelain Wayback. If I shower at really odd times, the water often comes out hot and soothing, with respectable water pressure. If I flush the toilet with the precision and delicacy of a fifth-dan black belt, everything goes just fine.
But this morning things changed. To use the euphemistic terminology that the American Government might employ, the "situation escalated." There I was, blow-drying my hair after washing it in the frigid water of the sink, when my grooming experience was totally interrupted. Without so much as a pop, crackle, or self-respecting ZZzzzzt, off went the dryer. And the lights. And, in fact, all the electricity. My bathroom time machine has transported me and my entire house all the way back to the FREAKING MIDDLE AGES.
Now I probably just need to be patient. The hot water will come back. The time machine can't intimidate it forever.
And the electricity? Well, surely all I'll need to do is flip a circuit breaker somewhere in what, as you all may recall, is the World's Creepiest Basement. While avoiding the soul-devouring creatures I know live by my laundry room. And because it's a fake-type holiday, I'm sure I can leave work a little early to get that done in the daylight.
But, if the situation escalates, the only remedy I can imagine is some sort of Wellesian exorcism involving toilet flappers, electromagnets, and chicken blood.
Please, universe, don't let it come to that.