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There are some chores that need to be done frequently, not like raking the leaves, which you can actually slide by with only once or twice a year, unless you're finicky. Or your parents are. I remember when we were raking behind the Lype house in Elkville, in southern Illinois. Jimmy raised the question, "If a job well done doesn't need to be done again, how come we have to do this all the time?"... I think I said that each year it's a new job. Seems to be about the state of things in the job market these days too. It was a large tree, behind that house. Took two kids to hold hands and give it a hug. One of the neatest things about that tree was the large, I mean GIANT! ants that crawled up and down. They were like ant warriors from Africa or Brazil, with red hair on their backs. With a magnifying glass you could almost see the metal breastplates and spears they carried. We waged wars there sometimes, snapping them with equally giant rubber bands, about a foot long. Fortunately never got bit. I don't think red hair would've gone very well with my gray beard now, and we could've lost a lot of friends if those ants had formed into regiments and come after us. But I'm not going to talk about ants today. Not even aunts. Just immediate family, a Maytag washer, and some of the slimiest critters of the Earth. You see, I grew to the lazy age of 53, while washing clothes at my Mommy's. It's not that I am so dependent... orrrr.... at least not that I want to ADMIT that I am! (Remember? We're here to help me work through feelings, so you can keep those thoughts to yourself... please?) Anyway, I did that on purpose. About 5 or 6 years ago, Robbie said he knew someone that was selling a used washer and dryer at a good price. I thought about it, considered it, and talked with the folks about it. I finally decided not to buy them, since I knew that one thing that kept me linked to my folks' house for a couple hours, a couple times a week, was to go over to wash clothes. And of course there was always a meal involved. Dad liked me to visit... "Your mother fixes a better meal, when you're here." That guaranteed I'd be there. The washer, I mean. Well, I guess the dinner too. In fact if I went over without laundry it was a special occasion, and would usually raise a comment... "What! No laundry today?"... Yeah, taking advantage of others, perhaps, but with good intent. Good intent every four days or so. There was a certain comfort in it, since I'd be down in the basement and the folks would be upstairs. They talked loud enough, due to hearing difficulties, so I could hear them down there, so I didn't really miss anything in the conversation, except squeezing a word in. Later, we'll move on to squeezing a worm in. Well, this week I graduated. I was at the Best Buy School of Fine Appliances twice last week. Also checked out the prospectus at Sears Business College, but decided on the BB Maytag. You know what they say, that Maytag repairmen are the loneliest people around. So, it was with some trepidation, yet excitement, that I awaited the delivery of my graduate award this Monday, Sept 30th, 2002. I'd been cleaning the basement for a couple weeks, moving things, sweeping. It's not every day you have a couple cubic yards of metal machinery move into your place! The power outlet worked once the circuit breaker was flipped. Good! I'd had some concerns about that giant three-prong outlet, since it hadn't been used for at least 16 years. And if you don't use it, you lose it. And the water faucet worked, hot and cold. Doing just fine. Ready to check out the machine... Oh, by the way, when I worked on a psych unit in Chicago, one patient that I worked with for months diagnosed me as being a hot and cold running personality. I was very busy, rushing around to cure people of cutting and burning themselves, and I guess the stress sometimes got to me. She would've really been exasperated if I'd been born a washing machine, so I could have both temps running at the same time. So the delivery man filled it up and put the hose into the pipe to drain. One of those standup pipes about 3 feet high. Almost as tall as me! Just like the rings on a tree, I'm about an inch tall for each year, but I think I'm growing downward these days... Oh, the anticipation of being able to wash clothes like an independent bachelor. Set the control to spin... Water sprayed all over the place!... $#!^ &0> >@($&$) They called it a slow drain. Looked more like a mess to me, and a no drain. So, phoned my friendly mentor, Roto Rooter, and a few hours later he showed up with his guidance assistant. The short one. A real wound up character. I never know whether to call him a snake or a worm. They're both pretty good about crawling around corners. I hear a snail can go over a razor blade unharmed. Never saw it, though. And that snail didn't want to move either, with all the rust on that network of pipes, dropping down through the 60 year old floor. Couldn't get the obvious plugs off, for fear of breaking the entire assembly. Looking more and more like an all afternoon exam, right when I thought I was ready for a summer holiday. Well, the assistant wasn't too keen about snaking or worming his way through the tombs of old pipes, either. After about 20 minutes, looked like I just might fail the course, since the RR man, Richard, said that he wasn't going to be able to help me out. That damn worm kept wanting to crawl uphill, when he could just as easily go downstream. Four right-angled joints in the pipe. Figure the odds. Each one had a 50 per cent chance of turning him the right way. So the second turn, we're down to 25 per cent, the third 12.5, and the fourth 6.25 per cent. Actually I think it took about 8 tries, so the odds were in our favor. Should've taken more like 16. Should've been snaking our way through a Trifecta. He tried a couple more times, while I prayed. I do that in times of stress, when I think that God really could make life a bit easier. I know he's awful busy, though, and when it comes down to it, that worm and my pipes are not too significant. He's probably busy straightening the crooks in a much more serious endeavor... I started up the stairs to the first floor to get something, feeling like a failure, and he called after me, "I've got it." See?... All I had to do was give up... I really ought to do that more often... I wasn't even "climbing up the stairway to ah heaven." Success at last. Cleaned it out, and tried the washer again... Okay... except for the way water was now leaking out of the joints, right above the floor. That's the thing about water. It always seeks the lowest level, while keeping a flat face. So it's dumb plumbing time, or so we thought. Washed some clothes Thursday, but no leaking. Of course it was a small load, but still enough to choke an entire colony of worms, or a ball of snakes. Friday... the Master Plumber arrives and has a look. His thesis is that unless the pipe can be cut off, and is strong enough to thread with a new connector... Well, unless that... but much more likely the floor will have to be jack-hammered. Hmmmm... None of my courses had prepared me for that pop quiz. So I did what any good student would, tried to ask questions, to psych out what was the professor looking for. Lots of dust, he said. You know how dusty books can get in an old library, where no one can read fast enough. If you saw my basement, and knew how I've been trying to get it cleaned up, then you'd know that dust flying everywhere is not on the agenda. Orrrr... worse idea yet... The possibility that the main pipe underground is in need of replacement, leading to digging a path right through the basement, like an insidious mole, grinding concrete in its mechanical jaws, and spitting out silicone powder clouds. So we skipped the plumbing. But that brings me to the inconvenience of having a washer and dryer. Seems that all these years I spared myself a lot of grief by washing clothes a mile and a half from my home, over next to the river... Or maybe that other house was really my home, though I only slept there on occasion, mostly while visiting from Chicago, or after moving here, and finding that whenever I slouched down on their couch, it sapped the strength right out of me, carrying me down into a slumber. And you don't fall asleep where you're uncomfortable, so that was truly a home. So it seems, between the Maytag repairman and me, we've got loneliness and frustration well covered. Things are not always as convenient as they might seem on the surface. Worms and snakes, and moles and snails can go their own way for a while. I'll let them be for now. Maybe in the spring after a good long hibernation, we can try again. Or maybe the basement piper will decide the tune. Might turn the handel one day and get "Water Music." Or worse yet, Wasserspielen... "Water playing." As a child, I liked to play in the water. Oma used to call it "Sutling."... I don't know how to spell it and can't find it in the German dictionary, but it meant playing around, fooling around at the faucet. I had a lot of fun doing it, and she said it in a good way.
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