Lawn Chair I Bought at the Drugstore

I think it will take at least a week for the giddiness over the new kitchen faucet to subside. This was one of those repair jobs that have effects far beyond the obvious. The old faucet worked okay, but the area under it was never dry, because the faucet was just plain worn out. And crappy to start with. It was the classic one-lever job so many homes ended up with in the Seventies and Eighties, with the little ball on top of the lever. Total garbage. And it stuck nearly straight out over the sink, so it was impossible to get a big pot under it. And washing your hands under a low faucet is a pain, if there’s anything in the sink. You have to move stuff out of the way.

The Bradys probably had one of these next to their avocado-colored refrigerator.

Whatever rot was going on because of the dripping will now be arrested. I no longer have to worry that the floor will cave in.

It’s amazing, the things that can go wrong with a house. And if you come from a white-collar family, you may have no idea what’s happening. White-collar people are often extremely ignorant about home maintenance. Houses deteriorate constantly. You have to be the immune system. And if you don’t know what happens to houses that aren’t maintained, you need to read up and find out.

My great-grandfather owned a few houses in the Depression. He let people live in them, free of charge. Why? Because empty houses fall apart. When you can’t get rent, you can at least get a certain basic level of maintenance.

I can’t believe the suffering I’ve endured because of ignorance. For example, I had no idea black ants and carpenter ants were bad, so I didn’t bother killing them. The carpenter ants ate a bunch of my physics texts, which I had kept for sentimental reasons. They also killed my tomatoes by putting aphids on them. I don’t know what mischief the black ants got up to, but I’m sure they did something bad. They’re dead now.

Cars are just like houses. It turns out you have to replace your tires every six years, even on vehicles you don’t drive. Otherwise the sidewalls crack open; I’ve seen it happen. Tires rot with age. They don’t tell you this when you buy tires, because sometimes you’re buying tires that are already two or three years old. Tires have a code on them; you can figure out how old they are. No one told me about that when I was a kid. Pretty scary, if you’re driving your children around on old tires.

Entropy is a real dirtbag. It never lets up for a second. Maybe it’s best to think of life as a treadmill instead of an easy chair.

By the way, the sucrose/boric acid syrup seems to be wiping out the ghost ants. I’m going to make some more and pour it on the exterior walls near ant nests. I guess I’m turning into one of those annoying old guys who never stops working on his house, and who irritates his neighbors by pointing out their maintenance problems. Maybe in ten years I’ll be raising the flag every morning and taking it down at night, and strolling around the yard in Bermuda shorts and black socks, with a tall boy of Milwaukee’s Best in one hand.

Actually, those guys are pretty cool compared to jaded, dysfunctional neighbors whose kids egg your house all the time.