Thursday, February 4, 2010

This always happens!

Last Friday, the kids and I came downstairs to do the breakfast/get dressed/noyoucantwatchcartoonsbeforeschool shuffle. S, who has developed an obsession with Yoplait's Lemon Creme Pie yogurt (it is totally to die for), was eating the aforementioned yogurt. T was diving into a bowl of Apple Jacks. I went to turn on the water so I could wipe down the counters, and I noticed that there was water everywhere. It was impossible to tell where the leak was exactly, because it seemed to come from several places. This can't be good. S and I had to leave to meet R and go to the legal office at 8:30, so I fussed with the faucet until I got it to stop leaking and then stopped touching it immediately. One of the best things about living in base housing? Maintenance!

After we got back from doing morning errands, I cautiously approached the sink and decided to try and rinse off the breakfast dishes. This time, water actually shot out from the back of the faucet. I've never seen that happen before, and I'm still not convinced that it wasn't some sort of optical illusion. I was wearing my contacts, so maybe that was part of it. Wait, that makes no sense. Never mind.

I took a deep breath and called housing maintenance. They said that they considered this a housing emergency, and would send someone out ASAP. Well, cool! T comes home from school and the kids and I are baking cookies. I need to turn on the water again, and I really, really don't want to do it because if T sees the squirt and splash show, it's going to be a battle to keep him away from the sink because he'll think that's hilarious, which means S will think it's hilarious, which means they will want to do it again and again. The bright side to that possibility is that the area around the sink will be very, very clean. Hmmmm.....nah. Still not worth it.

I wait until they are distracted and then very gingerly turn on the faucet. No leaks. Not even a drop of wasted water. Yay! I mean, wait! What?! Whoa! So I start turning the faucet on and off. Water comes out where it's supposed to, and no where that it isn't supposed to. Oh for the love of pete! I've got maintenance coming to fix this, and now there's no leak? This is like the time R was deployed that I had to jump the car anytime I wanted to go anywhere for a week, but let anyone be interested in helping me, and darn thing started and purred like a kitten. OR like any one of the times that the kids had a horrible fever and were obviously seriously sick, but when we got to the Dr's office, there was no trace of the cough that was keeping all of us up at night and the kids, whom I had described as 'lethargic' were bouncing off the walls and acting completely normal. T, still over at the cookie dough bowl, doesn't even look up at me but says, "On or off Mom. You're going to break it." Ha!!!!!

I'd like to think that I'm handy and knowledgeable enough to have fixed the faucet, but I know better. I try to call maintenance to let them know the leaking has stopped, but it turns out there is no way to do that. The line is automated and only gives you the options of opening a service ticket or leaving a message. The line actually says that there is no way to check on or cancel an open ticket. Well, alrighty then. I'm going to look like a big fat liar. And, just like I fear is written in the medical files from Germany, the housing people are going to put "hysterical and over reactive" by my name. Sigh. It was leaking, I swear it was.

A little while later, the maintenance guy calls me. I explain that I'm so sorry, but that the faucet isn't leaking now, even though it totally, absolutely was when I called before so he doesn't need to come. There's a slight pause, like he's thinking about whether or not I'm crazy, and then he asks if he can come by anyway just to check. Well, sure! But it's not leaking mister.

He shows up and explains that these faucets give the maintenance crew a fit. There's some sort of piece that tends to pop up within the faucet, and it will cause it to leak. (I think he was just being nice.) He ends up taking the faucet completely apart and putting it back together - just to 'tighten things up'. He says he has no doubt that it was leaking, but the skepticism on his face screams "liar, liar pants on fire!" Ahh, well, what can you do? You could tell from looking under the sink that there had been a leak. He was also impressed that I had thought to look under the sink and mop up the water that had leaked down there. If this impresses him, what kind of people live in this type of housing? (Well, folks like the McNeighbors for one - bet he's glad he didn't have to go and look at her sink - where in the heck would he park his truck?!?)

At any rate, he packs up his tools and heads out. The sink does fine all day on Friday. Over the weekend, however, the it did the leak thing again - with R here. VALIDATION. No spectacular water spewing like before, just water coming from the bottom of the faucet again. I wiggle the faucet around until it stops and then announce that only I should turn the faucet on and off in the kitchen because it leaks whenever anyone else does it. R, in the middle of the 'where is that picture' frenzy (if you haven't read about that yet, it's the Mea Culpa blog), doesn't bat an eye at this, he just agrees and backs slooowly away from the sink. Awww! He's finally learning!

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