White Lightning Axiom: Redux

Well, I managed to get into a fairly decent pickle yesterday. The Mrs and I had been smelling gas fumes (well, not the gas it self, the crap they add to it so you can actually smell it) for a few days now. We had initially thought it was the aroma from the diaper pail since Jacob had produced a particularly interesting byproduct recently. I was a bit concerned after I found that the smell had dissipated from the bathroom where the pail is situated but not from the kids room. I figured that I would give PECO a call and have them take a look, just to be sure. Some old saying about the road to hell and good intentions paving the road with your guts comes to mind. Apparently, after spending a few moments on the phone with the helpful Customer Service Representative, I find out that because I called about a gas leak, they have no choice but to send out a PECO person and shut off my gas weather I am there or not. YIKES. Rules, don't ya know. Well, I certainly do not want my gas shut off it there is no leak, so I run out to the car for the 45 minute trip home. I figured that it will eat up a chunk of my day, but I'll be able to just turn around and come back to the client site pretty quickly. Fortunately, it is 1130 so the lunch hour traffic has not picked up yet.

I get close to the 611/Willow Grove NAB exit when my cell phone rings. It's 1215 and they are already at the house complaining that I'm not there. Someone failed to mention to the field crew that I had a 45 minute trip to make. I explained to the upset fellow that I would be there in 15 minutes as I was just exiting the Turnpike. From then on, the traffic on the local roads worked against me, but I still made it in 10 minutes. I blasted onto the service road and disarmed all the booby traps and security devices so the PECO Guy could come onto the property and start sniffing around the pipes to see if he could find anything. He looked like a pretty clean-cut guy (nice pressed uniform too) and we talked a bit while he looked about. He suddenly became quiet as his little detector device started beeping like it was going into cardiac arrest. He looks at the read-out and gives a long, low whistle. Apparently, this is the worst leak he as ever seen in a non-commercial installation. It seems that my concern was justified. All the recent heating and cooling of the pipes (going from 35 to 80 in a few hours) has cause the joints to shift a bit. I asked what the next step was and learned a new PECO rule. He had to shut off the gas to the house. All of it. Damn. He has no choice and could get fired, yada-yada-yada. So off goes the dryer and the hot-water heater. The Furnace has not been running for a week now so I have no real problem with that. It's the wet clothes and cold water that would cause me consternation. I immediately called my plumber, Fred, and he let me know that as soon as he finished the job he was on now, he would head over and see what he could do. He lives just down the street from me and we have used his services a couple other times. It's good to have a mechanic and a plumber that you can trust. Did I mention I have an electrician that lives about 1 block away. This is one of the reasons that I will probably not move any time soon; necessary services within 15 minutes.

Time is grinding by and while I wait for Fred, I start to realize that I may not be returning to work this afternoon. It took me about 45 minutes to get home, another hour or so dealing with the PECO guy, then an hour wait till Fred can come and start on the pipes. When Fred did get here, it only took 1 hour and 125$ to complete the job and get the gas back on. No muss, no fuss, except for a 4 hour 'personal time' that I'll have to log since going back to work now is a no-op. I could get there by 1615 and turn around to spend more time/tolls/gas on the Turnpike. No, I'll take my lumps here at the Manor. Nothing much to note about my tasks except that I found a mouse in the basement, by accident. I was taking some of the tons of toys that the kids did not pay attention to anymore and carting them off to sub-basement 12-T when I noticed a little lump of fuzz on the floor. Since my hands were full at the time I figured I would kick it over towards the trash can and clean it up on my return trip. I believed it to be a light ball of string and lint so the air resistance would slow the velocity quickly so I fed in a little extra oomph into the kick. Well, it was solid. More so than a normal lump of detritus. It went flying across the floor and hit the wall next to the trash can with a very audible and weighty THUD. Intrigued, I set down my load and ambled over to the light-switch so I could get a better look at this new-found relic. With the blazing lights fully illuminating my quarry, I find that it is fuzzy, but not inert. Well, it WAS not inert, but now it is. It was a small field mouse who had found it's way into the manor after circumventing the anti-mater force fields. How it ended up here was beyond me, but it was not going to lead me anywhere now. It twitched a few times and then lay still. I felt bad but I suppose that it would have had no less of a horrible end than if it were starved to death or lived it's last blissful moments eating peanut butter from the bait of a trap.

Other noteworthy events: Went to the YMCA only to find out that all the classes for 'Perch' were already filled unless you wanted Wednesday at 1400. Yeah, not happening. I saw the pool and thought that it might have been fate that kept us from having lessons here. The outdoor pool was host to various floating jetsam and flotsam as well as being about 3 feet short of full. The remaining water looked quite unappetizing, and somewhat toxic. This did not seem to bother the 4 mallards making their rounds on the perimeter. Well, 3 of them were, 1 was belly-up in the center of the pool. Perhaps we should find somewhere else to teach our kids to swim that has a bit less squalid demeanor. Like Love Canal. I left there with a queasy feeling in my stomach that can only be cured by going to the local Home Depot Temple and loading up on greenery and fertilizer. Lots of double begonias and petunias with a couple of large plants with red leaves that look tropical. They appear to be a variety of Elephant Ear but have a name spelled with 'C'. Oh well, they looked nice once I got them all set up on the front porch. All I have left now is to fill the hanging baskets and the majority of the gardening work will be done with. Given that, it's supposed to get down to 35 tonight. Great.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 1:28 AM