Papas, don't let your daughters grow up to be useless
Sunday, November 8th, 2015 06:47 pmGas company is coming to replace water heater tomorrow, one hopes. I dutifully clean the basement stairs of accumulated leaf mould and broken glass, then go inside to see how stiff the door is. Door won't budge. No doubt this jerry-rigged addition to my house has been settling and now everything is jammed. When next door comes back from their walk I go and weep on my brother's shoulder. He comes over with a flashlight and brute-forces the door open. Yay hurray.
Then he starts poking about near the furnace, inquiring about the furnace humidifier. I know nothing about humidifiers except that they rarely work, is why I have bedroom ones. He evinces a desire to clean the thing but says he'll wait till he can locate the model online and find where the power switch is supposed to be. Then he starts looking for gas shutoffs and water shutoffs and tracing overhead pipes. Locates gas shutoffs for furnace and heater, locates two shutoffs for water besides the main one, tells me to point this out to the guys tomorrow.
'How do guys know all this?' I ask, in real curiosity. 'One day Dad took me down to the cellar and showed me how to find where everything is. I mean, you need to know these things in case of emergencies.' Yeah well, he didn't think *I* needed to know these things in case of an emergency, grump, and I'm not the kind who'd study where pipes and wires go from personal interest. I trust they order this aspect of child-rearing better these days.
Then he starts poking about near the furnace, inquiring about the furnace humidifier. I know nothing about humidifiers except that they rarely work, is why I have bedroom ones. He evinces a desire to clean the thing but says he'll wait till he can locate the model online and find where the power switch is supposed to be. Then he starts looking for gas shutoffs and water shutoffs and tracing overhead pipes. Locates gas shutoffs for furnace and heater, locates two shutoffs for water besides the main one, tells me to point this out to the guys tomorrow.
'How do guys know all this?' I ask, in real curiosity. 'One day Dad took me down to the cellar and showed me how to find where everything is. I mean, you need to know these things in case of emergencies.' Yeah well, he didn't think *I* needed to know these things in case of an emergency, grump, and I'm not the kind who'd study where pipes and wires go from personal interest. I trust they order this aspect of child-rearing better these days.
