Walnuts on My Windshield - Issue #2

Thursday, June 17, 2004

I had a couple of requests for this week's column. First, a big thank you to Scott for going to the parents meeting for Josiah's upcoming Cub Scout "resident camp," so I could attend the annual homeschool used curriculum sale in Springfield. It was two hours of delightful browsing and bargain finding. I think I really scored, finding, among other things, a nice copy of Apologia Physics (for some future science student) and a nifty 30-foot timeline that should be a great resource for Katie.

Second, there was the matter of the shower drain. Our second-floor shower has always leaked. Therefore, we have never been able to use it. Through the years, we have determined that it was probably not a plumbing problem. This summer, we hired a handy man to do a lot of the fixing-up around here that Scott doesn't have time for. At our request, Barry applied some rather pricey special sealing paint to the floor of the shower. This stuff was guaranteed to seal, and as noxious as the fumes were, it could have been guaranteed to knock you out. Barry survived, and, voila - the shower was usable! Josiah was finally able to take his shower NOT in our bathroom! All was well for a few weeks, and then, sadly, the pools of water on the bathroom floor resumed. Further testing revealed that the problem was the tiled shower walls. Evidently they were somehow porous. Aaaaargh! Barry returned and applied the stuff to the walls. He almost passed out, but not quite. He does talk in a rather squeaky voice now. . . Anyway, after ALL that time and money and fumes, the shower was finally, totally fixed. What a blessing. That night, Josiah went to take a shower, and a few minutes later, we heard hollering from the bathroom. He was moaning about having done something really dumb. You won't believe it when I tell you. Standing there in the shower, Josiah's creative juices began to flow. He saw the small, round shampoo bottle. With his toe, he knocked aside the drain plate (which had never been screwed back down after all the sealing). He could see straight down the drainpipe. Wonder of wonders, the shampoo bottle - slightly taller than a restaurant salt shaker - appeared to be about the same diameter as the drainpipe. For no discernable reason - beyond, "because it was there," - he upended the shampoo bottle and slid it into the hole. What had been interesting suddenly became disastrous. After examining the problem in some detail, Scott, always a master of his emotions, sent Josiah to bed and began extrication techniques. The bottle was smooth plastic. Its bottom was facing up. There was only about ¼" clearance around it. It had fallen down the pipe until the pipe bent slightly, so it was about fifteen inches down. Scott developed quite a list of things that would not work: needle-nose pliers, kitchen tongs, vise-grip pliers attached to coat hangars. I even contributed a radical idea of my own. I had recently bought some nifty tomato poles at Lowe's. They are rather sharp on one end; so I thought perhaps the offending bottle could be stabbed, pierced, and lifted out. I took a flashlight to the garden, yanked a pole from a tomato plant, and brought it in. No go. We went to bed a) deeply frustrated, b) musing on the cost of having that cement slab of shower floor jack-hammered out, and c) wondering if Josiah would live to be eleven. Early the next morning, before going out to pray, Scott went to his computer to see what the news was from China. His computer screen said, "no operating system found." For those of you who may not realize it, this means your computer has died and probably can't be resurrected. This is the computer that contains all Scott's business and ministry information. He turned it off and tried again. Once again, he saw, "no operating system found." He decided it was time to pray!

After he got back from praying, Scott went back to his computer. It started right up! What a miracle! He immediately backed it up. Then, he returned to the shower challenge. Meanwhile, I came in from walking and headed toward our shower. While I sat down to take off my shoes, Scott strode into the bedroom holding the victim: (no, not Josiah!) a shampoo bottle impaled on a tomato pole!!! He had gotten the idea to use a hacksaw to sharpen the tomato pole more. He also cut reverse notches in the sides of the pole to help it grab once it pierced the bottle's bottom. Sure enough, he was then able to impale the offending object, and slowly and carefully lift it out of the drainpipe! We were whooping and hollering, and Josiah was thrilled, too. He had feared that having the bathroom floor torn out might cost him (gasp) "about $50!" We give God thanks for many things - among them a living son, a functional computer, and a clear drain.

Until next time. . .

Patty

This page was last updated on Sunday, June 27, 2004