We all have our red
letter days, dates that we mark privately or within our immediate families that
mean nothing in particular to our friends or extended family. Something
happened this morning that may very well make it one of those days.
Many moons ago, on
the final leg of our road trip/move from Dallas to Sharon, we had a flat tire
on our blue Ford Maverick. It was early on a Sunday morning, long before the
days of cell phones, so we were on our own to change the tire. I still remember
dragging the girls out of the car, putting them well behind the roadside
barrier, and telling them quite sternly that they were not to move so we could
focus on the task at hand. My guess is that they were at least as frightened as
we were, never having seen their parents engage in such activities, and they
did not so much as move a muscle. We approached this task the way any two
scientists would: we took out the owner’s manual and read the step by step
instructions on how to use the jack, lift the car, take off the damaged tire,
and put on the spare tire. We then made our way to the next exit to make sure the
bolts were tight and we had sufficient air in that tire to complete the trip.
We talked about this for years as a major highlight of our journey from Dallas
to Sharon.
That was back in
1986, and in the last thirty years I do not believe we have accomplished
anything quite as noteworthy, including many papers published and grants funded
(Barry), pharmaceutical compounds approved by FDA (Rebecca), and raising two
daughters through college and weddings and welcoming five grandchildren. But it
all changed yesterday.
I mentioned a few
days ago that we have been having some plumbing work done in our house. The upstairs
level of the house has three bathrooms (one in each of the bedrooms) and a
powder room, and the downstairs has one bathroom in the 4th bedroom/office,
for a total of 4½ bathrooms. That downstairs bathroom
was the one causing the trouble. But shortly after the plumber turned off the
water to that bathroom, we lost the water in the upstairs master bathroom sink.
We couldn’t figure out why, but we moved our toothbrushes to the powder room
and assumed that when the water was turned back on we would have our bathroom
sink back. But when the water was restored to the downstairs bathroom, it was
still not running upstairs. It would drip a bit, and eventually came out in a
very thin stream, but clearly something was wrong. The plumber had left by the
time we realized that the problem had not resolved, and we thought we would
just have to wait for his return.
After a couple of
days, something got into my head. I do not know why but it suddenly occurred to
me that maybe something was stuck in the faucet itself. Here is where the years
of making the kitchen kosher for Passover come in handy. One of the steps of cleaning
in the kitchen is to remove the tip of the faucet and clean out the little mesh
piece inside. Lo and behold when I removed this I found the small mesh piece
covered in gunk that must have been relocated by the pressure of shutting off
the downstairs water. I cleaned it off, put the faucet back together and voila –
return of the water!
I realize that many
of you are just scratching your heads wondering what the big deal is. Barry
grew up in a household largely devoid of tools, and although my father was a
bit more adept at simple repairs I do not think many girls who grew up in the
1950s and 60s had fathers who taught them such things. Now my only concern is
that Barry seems far too impressed with this accomplishment and he may get some
ideas about other household projects I might be able to tackle….oy!
Have a wonderful
weekend.
Love,
Rebecca
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