Sometimes,
a situation occurs—something way too delicious to let it slip by—that merits
it’s very own blog post. Such a sitch has, indeed, occurred in Walker World,
friends. Enough even to send me back into the blogosphere, a place I have
avoided since December.
Turns
out, one can get a great deal of television watched when avoiding one’s craft;
but not much else. So consider this my Back to Business blog post. I want to
keep it updated, at least once a week. No need to disappoint all 12 of my
followers.
Once
again, I have learned much about how a “simple” home renovation is a mirror of
real life relationships. These same repairs also create an enormous amount of
dust.
We are
“thiiiiisss close” to finishing our brand-new bathroom. We are a family of five
sharing a smallish space, whose bathroom grand total is one and a half. That
ain’t much space, folks. Not only does it mean we use a carefully calculated
Excel file coordination system of who showers when, but it also means no adult
has showered (or done any other bathroom business) unaccompanied since around
2002.
While the
full bath re-do was happening, we shared the half bath, a space approximately
one-third the size of a Smart Car. It was loads of fun, especially before I got
wise to using my daughters’ closet space as a handy litter box placement; until
then, even the cat used the half bath. It was a constant lesson in patience,
something I run short on too often.
Further,
the half bath doesn't have a shower, so let me just say we're now members in
good standing at the local YMCA. I joined the day before Easter so I could show
up at church clean and spiffy in my Sunday best, and not the yoga pants and
"St. Patrick's Day 2009" t-shirt I'd sported most of Spring
Break.
The re-do
has been a family affair. Most of the work has been done by my husband and my
dad, though me, my brother and my sister have all pitched in. It is looking
great. I love the gray walls, the new tub and sink, and can’t wait to hang my
shower curtain—a 72”x72” New York City subway map.
But the
one sticking point has been the shower vent/light. They were able to turn the
vent on, and it worked fine, but the light did not. A series of re-wiring,
junction box inspections, plugging and unplugging, then re-plugging in every
possible combination, left the fellas out-of-sorts about the whole thing. There
were trips to The Home Depot (this is how men solve an assortment of problems),
calls to electricians and even reading the directions. Still, the light to the
vent was not turning on.
Meanwhile,
this slowed the progress of my dream ceiling: tin tiles, sprayed-painted yellow
and affixed with some adorable crown molding. Then I realized that the ceiling
was about to cost more than the combined cost of the new floor and tub. Now my
dream ceiling has a less lofty requirement: done. And yellow. I will not bend
on the yellow.
Alas—and
here’s where the real life lesson comes in—the solution was simple. My
hard-working man climbed up into the attic on Saturday, determined not to come
down until he figured the damned thing out.
And then
there was light! And a vent! At the same time!
Here is
exactly the way my beloved explained the problem to me—I swear—word for
painfully-true-yet-simple-to-solve word:
“The male end was not connecting with the
female end.”
Let me
type that again for you, folks. It’s too good to say only once:
“The male
end was not connecting with the female end.”
Well,
I’ll be damned. There it was, the solution to an entire lifetime of
complications, all wrapped up in a Columbia sweatshirt, feet dangling out of a
hole in my bathroom ceiling.
He went
on. “It was actually a simple solution. The male end was just pushing the
female end away, but I needed to make a way for them to connect to turn
it on.”
Listen,
fella, who you tellin’?
And so,
we have a light, a vent, a connection and a really, really good story about the
bathroom.
It’s all
about connection. Once that’s been made, it doesn’t take much effort to flip my
switch.
Who’s
turned on?
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