Yes, Old Faithful. And I don't mean the faucet; I mean Nate and his continued ability to entertain me, even at the cost of soaking everything in our bathroom....!This is a picture of Nate from last night shortly after his little mishap. I was in the living room enjoying the latest movie version of Pride and Prejudice (with Kiera Knightly, and might I say that the BBC mini-series version is 10x better). I had been upset earlier because our apt management has successfully sucked for the last several days (and months, but whose counting?), which included a planned, but unwarned water shut-off (VERY bad move) and then one of our bathroom faucets started to drip worse as a result of whatever they had been doing during the water shut-off. So, they sent a maintenance man to fix it. He made a mess, didn't pick up after himself, put the knobs on backwards, and "fixed" it so good that you had to turn the knobs at least a full half turn before water came out-- pretty bad handyman.
Enter Nate. Nate, sensing my frustration decided, like any good husband, that maybe he could try to fix it himself. I don't believe in this, since we are paying good rent to have someone do this for us. Well, whatever- I was preoccupied and didn't really care. After a little while of hearing some tinkering and thoughtful shuffling coming from the other end of the apt, I suddenly hear a HUGE "whoooooooooossshhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!" and "ssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Sounds like something exploded....with water.
I didn't hear any sounds really, besides quick shuffling and clinking and the ceasing of the large water rushing noise. No yelling or yelping or cries for help or larges sighs. Ok, well, maybe he's got it under control. Maybe it sounded worse than it is, especially since I have my movie volume cranked up. Maybe I just imagined it....
Curiosity got the better of me, of course, so I hit Pause and hollared back to the strangely silent apt, swearing I hear lots of dripping. "Are you OK Nate? What happened? Did you fix it?" As I write this now, I am giggling but then-- oh boy, I was beginning to wonder.
I unwrapped myself from my confortable couch position, slipped on my slippers and walked back to find Nate. And what a state I found him in. Soaked-- himself, his head, his glasses, the counter, the big mirror, the ceiling, the floor, all my "prettying products." And, Nate is just standing there, pretty much in shock-- not running for a towel or yelling for me. Instead, I'm staring at him and beginning to laugh uncontrollably, not helping either, while he turns away semi-giggling and in husbandly shame. "How the hell did you do this?! What happened?" A lowly, and whiny "I don't know....." was the response. "Where's my camera?" I think once I get a hold of myself.
Nate is standing in a pool of water all around him. The culprit: an open faucet head which erupted like a holy font, baptising Nate in all the wonder that is home maintenance and plumbing knowledge. He says, luckily, that he turned the water off beforehand, but I'm not entirely sure I believe him. Either way, I grabbed some towels and handed them off and basically said "have fun," while continuing to laugh uncontrollably and assess the situation by watching the guilty accept what he has to do to clean up his mess, as well as slowly accept that what he did was pretty awesome and hilarious.
So I took a few pictures to document my findings and went back to my movie, intermittantly laughing between scenes about the drama in my own home.
That night I stood on cold tile to wash up for bed while my soaking wet bathroom rugs hung to dry. But I didn't mind.... Thoughts of Old Faithful distracted me.
After crawling into bed, and chatting with Nate, I couldn't help but laugh some more as we fell asleep. He credited his "cat-like reflexes" (his words) with saving the bathroom from further, certain ruin. I laughed some more and drifted off.
Here are some more pictures:
