Riding your bike, for one.
I have painfully bad judgment when it comes to choosing the days when I ride to work. I really should check the forecast. Especially on days like this.
Wind gusts hit forty miles-per-hour in Charlotte today and that was enough to topple some really tall trees. Luckily, only one fell along my bike route. It had the courtesy not to land on top of me and crack my skull.
I spent most of my ride looking upward, just in case some majestic pine decided to tumble into my path. That did not happen.
I did have to carry my bike around some giant oak tree that landed in the middle of Murrayhill Road. I lightly traipsed through some guy's lawn. Later, I rode by some other guy's plastic nativity scene. The wind had cut down all of the wise men. One lost his head. The Lamb of God remained unaffected.
I got home in a half-hour, skull intact. No trees fell on me. Or my house.
Tomorrow, I'll check the forecast before I go to work. That way, I can forget it before I leap on my bike.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Why I Have Lost Faith In My Toilet
My toilet is weak.
Every so often, it refuses to flush, instead making a little whimpering noise as the water gently undulates in the bowl. If a commode could softly weep, this is how it would sound.
To be fair, my toilet is not like yours. Yours has a little floaty thing and a flap over a hole and a handle. Mine has what appears to be an on-board nuclear reactor inside the tank and a shiny button on top. Near as I can tell, this is used not just to flush, but to propel the bowl's contents through a pipe and skyward into orbit.
The problem is that every so often, the whole contraption decides not to work, which then leaves, to put it succinctly, a mess behind. To keep my toilet from functioning like a military latrine, I open up the tank and pretend to know what I am doing. I furrow my brow and say "hmmm" as I stroke my chin. I gently knock things with a screwdriver, as if a gentle thud will give me any different information than say, a dull clank.
Tonight, I actually watched a troubleshooting video from the manufacturer. It calmly told me that whatever was wrong could be cured by dumping water over the different working parts of the canister. If the liquid was not mysteriously sucked down into a small rubber orifice, the video calmly told me to remove the piece, look at it, then screw it back into place. I failed to see how this would help.
It turns out that the best way to cure my toilet is the best way to cure a lot of things: turn it off and on. After I'd cut off the water and then turned it back on thirty seconds later, the toilet flushed with such veracity that I could have launched a small satellite into space.
It's fixed. For now.
You really should get a closer look at my toilet if you get the chance. I swear you won't be disappointed. Unless, of course, you're expecting it to flush.
Every so often, it refuses to flush, instead making a little whimpering noise as the water gently undulates in the bowl. If a commode could softly weep, this is how it would sound.
To be fair, my toilet is not like yours. Yours has a little floaty thing and a flap over a hole and a handle. Mine has what appears to be an on-board nuclear reactor inside the tank and a shiny button on top. Near as I can tell, this is used not just to flush, but to propel the bowl's contents through a pipe and skyward into orbit.The problem is that every so often, the whole contraption decides not to work, which then leaves, to put it succinctly, a mess behind. To keep my toilet from functioning like a military latrine, I open up the tank and pretend to know what I am doing. I furrow my brow and say "hmmm" as I stroke my chin. I gently knock things with a screwdriver, as if a gentle thud will give me any different information than say, a dull clank.
Tonight, I actually watched a troubleshooting video from the manufacturer. It calmly told me that whatever was wrong could be cured by dumping water over the different working parts of the canister. If the liquid was not mysteriously sucked down into a small rubber orifice, the video calmly told me to remove the piece, look at it, then screw it back into place. I failed to see how this would help.
It turns out that the best way to cure my toilet is the best way to cure a lot of things: turn it off and on. After I'd cut off the water and then turned it back on thirty seconds later, the toilet flushed with such veracity that I could have launched a small satellite into space.
It's fixed. For now.
You really should get a closer look at my toilet if you get the chance. I swear you won't be disappointed. Unless, of course, you're expecting it to flush.
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