November 27, 2002
Dear Everyone:
“The best laid schemes o’ mice and men …”
Didn’t include the bottom dropping out of the kitchen sink last Saturday.
OK, the actual sink didn’t drop, just all the water that was in the sink. I was doing some cleaning, actually trying to excavate down to the countertop, when I realized I was hearing the sound of running water. After I’d turned the water off.
That’s when I discovered the water pouring out from the cupboard under the sink. Luckily, there was a freshly laundered load of towels in the dryer, so I grabbed one and pressed it into service. Once I realized the water seemed to be coming from the pipe under the sink, I was able to slip a large, metal bowl in place to catch any additional drips and placed the sink on the disabled list.
That was about as much as I could do at the time as “Jeannie” was coming any moment with two new pairs of jeans (for the Italy Trip) that would require shortening. One pair required shortening by nearly five inches. Also, we had lunch to do and that takes priority over the sink.
On Sunday, I rooted through the “to be filed” pile and found the home warranty information, including my contract number, the 800 number and the “help yourself” web site. I elected to use the web site and filled in all the information and quickly received back the Dispatch Number and the name and number of the plumbing service which would receive the order promptly some time Monday morning.
Did I mention that I would be on vacation all this week? So being home for the plumber shouldn’t be too much of a problem. (In fact, I had sort of planned on using the time off to call about the water that kept showing up at times on the upstairs bathroom floor. This way, I was killing two birds with one deductible.)
When I hadn’t heard anything by
This, of course, meant that I couldn’t use the sink, or run the dishwasher, until Wednesday afternoon, assuming the problem was something the plumber could fix quickly and easily. I reminded myself (frequently) that this was hardly the end of the world. The downstairs bathroom sink was only a few feet away, if something absolutely had to be washed, or poured down a drain.
Consider it a mandate from heaven to eat only fast food and take out for a few days.
Bottom line: The plumber arrived an hour early and fixed both problems with a minimum of fuss and it only cost me the $35 deductible. Home warranties. Gotta love ‘em.
In other news…
The swarm appears to have died out.
As of this evening, we’ve had more than 30
earthquakes here
in San
Ramon since I was awakened at
Any time you have a lot of small quakes like this, it’s called a “swarm” of earthquakes. The scientists are all jumping up and down on one leg because they never even knew that this fault (the one running right under San Ramon) existed. (That’s funny, neither did I.) They don’t know if this means stress on the main fault has been released or not. Nor do they know if this means “The Big One” is coming (it is) or when (some time in the next 10 to 30 years).
But it’s been fun while it lasted. There I am, sitting in front of the computer, looking to see if I’ve received an email about my leaking sink, and everything starts shaking. Settles down. Starts shaking again. Rinse. Repeat.
But there don’t seem to have been any since around
How’s that for fun? And it didn’t even cost $35.
Love, as always,
Pete
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