This morning I was awakened about 45 minutes early by the words “Good morning, home owner.” Â This is a phrase to strike terror into the hearts of even the most manly of men at 6:30 in the morning. Â It is a collection of words that says “something is wrong and it is going to be time consuming, expensive and irritating to fix.” Â It’s rather a convenient shorthand, expressing in six syllables what it would take many more to convey otherwise.Amy customarily showers (well) before I do in the mornings. Â Usually she’s showered and dressed before I’m among the land of the living. Â She is very respectful of my desire to sleep as late as possible and still get done most of the things I need to do before getting to work more or less on time. Â This morning, she had excellent cause to break the habit.
Since we have had our exchange student living here, the frequency of showering has gone up quite a bit. Â Not only because there is an additional person in the house, but because he tends to shower a couple of times a day. Â Our house was built in the 1950’s, presumably with single pane aluminum windows. Â These windows are effectively holes in your walls allowing steady breezes to penetrate into virtually all rooms of the house and obviating the need for mechanical ventilation. Â Some time in the last 15 years or so, the majority of these windows have been replaced with rather nice vinyl-clad double-paned units that are rather better at keeping out the weather. Â The only trouble with this arrangement is that there is now no ventilation through the bathroom when the window and door are closed.
As a result of the combination of the increased showering (and attendant increase in humidity) and the complete lack of an exit strategy for this incredibly humid air, our bathroom is soaked. Â The walls basically run with water all morning. Â We are also very cheap and keep our thermostat quite low through the day so the temperature hasn’t really gotten up high enough to reduce the relative humidity. Â This morning the sodden nature of the backing board in the shower overcame the cohesive powers of the tile adhesive and nine tiles leapt to their doom. Â This was my early morning wake-up call.
Several people when learning of our proximity to my in-laws’ house have given me odd looks and said “that’s… surprisingly proximal” or words to that effect. Â On the day that my father-in-law walked by the house, saw us eating dinner and whistled loudly for our attention so he could wave at us, I agreed with these people a little bit. Â Today, however, when our shower was totally out of commission and three people were still filthy, their closeness and extreme hospitality paid off hugely when they offered to let us use their shower for the next few days. Â Thanks, mum & dad!
I will continue this on Friday as tomorrow is Doodle Day. Â Also by Friday I expect to have more to tell.