(read part one first, please. it's right below. Thank you.)
Now I'm waking up - and I realize, unlike Dexter Manley, I can read. It’s a miracle! Kind of like Helen Keller, I place my face against the mighty, ravenous water heater, trying to find the rules, trying to look for lightning bolts or skulls and cross bones or some indicia that if I do X, that's the last thing I'll ever do.
I own this hot water heater.
That was my second fully formed thought this morning.
I own this hot water heater. I own this shit. Like my Joe Montana rookie card and my lucky pants. This hot water heater belongs to me.
And now it's going to kill me.
It didn't.
I was able to figure out how to turn it off; I cleaned up as much of the flooded area as was I capable, I made - and then pushed back a plumbing appointment, recognizing I had a 7 AM class that would last 5 hours and that if I wasn't there to tell the first quarter students about the tactile/kinesthetic style of learning - by god, they'd never learn to unlock their scholarly potential by doodling rainbows or swastikas or “Future Mrs. Timberlake” hearts during my lecture.
Got home at noon, still without sleep since 3 or a shower since...well, since Saturday.
Yes, it was Monday. Don’t judge me, people! I was depressed and lounging in my own funk and I am unashamed!
The plumber who I had already hired twice before to fix broken toilets remembered me and asked if I had a room in which he could stay permanently.
Funny. Hi-larious.
Also funny is that I have also hired two plumbers to fix my shower, one to fix my sink, and then another to fix yet another toilet problem.
I've owned my home for 6 years.
7 plumbers in 6 years.
Not to mention that I've had 3 roof leaks and 5 ceiling repairs. A new 14 hundred dollar AC compressor, a year and a half of power outages that led to my needing a new refrigerator and TV, a hurricane caused busted window, an attack of hundreds of bees. Hundreds of bees that I was able to fend off with a half bottle of Kaboom and my plucky spirit.
Oh - And my complex once tried to tow my car.
Total cost for the new water heater.
$949.70.
And ceiling repair.
$150
And I'm five pounds too heavy. Okay, 15 pounds.
But I’m still better off than Mike Vick.
Real quick – I have zero sympathy for Michael Vick, imprisoned for dog fighting. I’m just glad he’s not one of my guys.
Except…not for nothing, but I eat pork.
And in terms of measurable brain activity, the only difference between dogs and pigs is pigs are smarter.
So – we torture a dog and call it prison.
We torture a pig and call it breakfast.
(I don’t want to walk down the road with you regarding how pigs are raised and treated on their way to slaughter, but it’s bad, sister, b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-ad.)
Maybe there’s some small difference between the two things, some small difference that one could point to between torturing dogs and torturing pigs.
But probably not enough difference to justify the difference in treatment.
One is prison. One is breakfast.
Don’t misunderstand, I do it too. Not only wouldn’t I torture a dog, I’ve stopped kids from being cruel to animals in a way I’d never stop someone from being cruel to a, you know, person. If you were to tell me “yup, I regularly kill and eat kittens for the meat” there is literally zero chance I would ever speak civilly to you regardless of what level of beaver worship you promised me.
But I eat pork.
It’s delicious.
And I have no moral justification for it. None.
If it turns out that I’m wrong, and above us isn’t only sky, and someone is there at the pearly gates after I’m dead to say I’m not allowed in because I didn’t pray to Mecca five times a day or I didn’t confess my sins to a guy in a robe or I never had my head dunked in a lake to be born again –
Well, you know, okay.
That stuff is so antithetical to the way I view the world, that if the world actually works that way, it would seem incomprehensible to me that this was the result. I wouldn’t want to be a member of that club. I’ll go somewhere else, thanks.
But if St. Peter is actually a giant bear sized beaver, and he says I’m going to hell for all the bacon I ate.
I’d have absolutely no defense.
I’m guilty.
100% Guilty.
My only hope is I’m serving some purgatory time right now.
7 plumbers in 6 years.
I own this hot water heater.
That was my second fully formed thought this morning.
I own this hot water heater. I own this shit. Like my Joe Montana rookie card and my lucky pants. This hot water heater belongs to me.
And now it's going to kill me.
It didn't.
I was able to figure out how to turn it off; I cleaned up as much of the flooded area as was I capable, I made - and then pushed back a plumbing appointment, recognizing I had a 7 AM class that would last 5 hours and that if I wasn't there to tell the first quarter students about the tactile/kinesthetic style of learning - by god, they'd never learn to unlock their scholarly potential by doodling rainbows or swastikas or “Future Mrs. Timberlake” hearts during my lecture.
Got home at noon, still without sleep since 3 or a shower since...well, since Saturday.
Yes, it was Monday. Don’t judge me, people! I was depressed and lounging in my own funk and I am unashamed!
The plumber who I had already hired twice before to fix broken toilets remembered me and asked if I had a room in which he could stay permanently.
Funny. Hi-larious.
Also funny is that I have also hired two plumbers to fix my shower, one to fix my sink, and then another to fix yet another toilet problem.
I've owned my home for 6 years.
7 plumbers in 6 years.
Not to mention that I've had 3 roof leaks and 5 ceiling repairs. A new 14 hundred dollar AC compressor, a year and a half of power outages that led to my needing a new refrigerator and TV, a hurricane caused busted window, an attack of hundreds of bees. Hundreds of bees that I was able to fend off with a half bottle of Kaboom and my plucky spirit.
Oh - And my complex once tried to tow my car.
Total cost for the new water heater.
$949.70.
And ceiling repair.
$150
And I'm five pounds too heavy. Okay, 15 pounds.
But I’m still better off than Mike Vick.
Real quick – I have zero sympathy for Michael Vick, imprisoned for dog fighting. I’m just glad he’s not one of my guys.
Except…not for nothing, but I eat pork.
And in terms of measurable brain activity, the only difference between dogs and pigs is pigs are smarter.
So – we torture a dog and call it prison.
We torture a pig and call it breakfast.
(I don’t want to walk down the road with you regarding how pigs are raised and treated on their way to slaughter, but it’s bad, sister, b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-ad.)
Maybe there’s some small difference between the two things, some small difference that one could point to between torturing dogs and torturing pigs.
But probably not enough difference to justify the difference in treatment.
One is prison. One is breakfast.
Don’t misunderstand, I do it too. Not only wouldn’t I torture a dog, I’ve stopped kids from being cruel to animals in a way I’d never stop someone from being cruel to a, you know, person. If you were to tell me “yup, I regularly kill and eat kittens for the meat” there is literally zero chance I would ever speak civilly to you regardless of what level of beaver worship you promised me.
But I eat pork.
It’s delicious.
And I have no moral justification for it. None.
If it turns out that I’m wrong, and above us isn’t only sky, and someone is there at the pearly gates after I’m dead to say I’m not allowed in because I didn’t pray to Mecca five times a day or I didn’t confess my sins to a guy in a robe or I never had my head dunked in a lake to be born again –
Well, you know, okay.
That stuff is so antithetical to the way I view the world, that if the world actually works that way, it would seem incomprehensible to me that this was the result. I wouldn’t want to be a member of that club. I’ll go somewhere else, thanks.
But if St. Peter is actually a giant bear sized beaver, and he says I’m going to hell for all the bacon I ate.
I’d have absolutely no defense.
I’m guilty.
100% Guilty.
My only hope is I’m serving some purgatory time right now.
7 plumbers in 6 years.
