Yesterday morning was a typical Friday morning in all respects, meaning I got up late. I was supposed to interview a guy coming in at 9:30, and it was already quarter of nine when I got up. It only takes me ten minutes to get to work, so I wasn't too worried. I hopped in the shower for my customary "Use all the hot water in the tank and wish there was more" shower, and got out at around ten past nine.

As I was going about my business, I heard a very strange noise coming from downstairs. It sounded for all the world like water running. At first I thought "Well, I *did* just use pretty much all of the hot water, so it's just the tank filling back up." But if that were the case, why had I never heard this particular sound before, since I use most of the hot water every single morning?

So I went downstairs without my glasses or contacts on to investigate. I opened up the door to the utility room and peered in, all squinty-eyed. Of course, being blind as a bat, I couldn't really see anything, but I sure could *hear* water running like crazy. So I took one step into the utility room.

*splash*

Uh oh.

Sure enough, when I finally got close enough to the hot water tank to see what was going on (which was approximately when my eyeball was in contact with the tank) I saw that water was spewing out the top of it willy-nilly, and there was about half an inch on the floor already.

I immediately rushed upstairs, found my glasses, found my landlord's number, and called him. Nobody there. I ran back downstairs to see if I could do something. There was this big screw-knob thingy that I assumed would turn off the water, but of course like all screw-knob thingys on all water pipes everywhere, it was rusted open and I couldn't close it.

So I ran back upstairs and called the landlord again. This time I got somebody, and told them that they had to get somebody over here quickly, because my water heater was spewing water everywhere and I couldn't stop it. They said "Ok" and I hung up. I called work to tell them that I'd be late, as well.

I ran around my apartment several times until I finally located a pair of pliars. I stood in the approximately (hyperbole alert) knee deep water in my utility room and fiddled with them for what seemed like hours until I could get them to open far enough to muckle onto the knob. Finally, with a great sigh of relief, I got the knob to turn and the water stopped flowing.

I went back upstairs to call my landlord again, and left a message this time saying I'd gotten the water to stop flowing but I still needed someone to come over ASAP to look at the thing because now I had no hot water. Then I hung up. Or thought I did.

I sat down and relaxed a bit then, and waited for someone to either show up or call. I played Angband in the meantime (Level 25, Dungeon level 21). Finally, at 10:00, I figured I'd waited long enough. Nobody was going to call me and nobody had shown up, and I had to get to work because I had about a zillion things to do that day.

So I picked up my cordless phone off my spare bed and walked it into my bedroom where the cradle is. It was then I noticed that the thing was on, basically keeping the line tied up so nobody *could* have called. Stupid cordless phones with a separate "talk" and "off" button. My old phone had one button for both, and a separate "flash" button for when you wanted to do the quick-hangup thing, for things like call-waiting. *This* phone has the "talk" and "flash" function integrated on one button, and a separate "off" button. So what I probably did was hit "talk" again to hang up, which only hangs up momentarily--then it comes right back on and keeps the line tied up. Grr.

Anyway, just as I was closing my door behind me, my landlord's wife came around the corner with her daughter. I told her what had happened (she said she'd been trying to call for half an hour--GRR!) and showed her the water heater. She said her husband was at the doctors and he'd come over after his appointment and check it out.

Cool. So off I went to work. After one *Hellacious* day at work, I finally got home around 8:00pm. I found my utility room light on and a note on top of the water heater saying that the landlord would be over tomorrow (now today) around "noonish" with a new water heater.

I got paged at 5am and again at 10:30am, so I was up in plenty of time to meet the landlord. I was all grubby from not being able to take a shower, but I was ready. Noon came. Then 1:00pm. Then 2:00pm. That was the end of the period that I *might* consider "noonish" in a pinch. When 3:00pm rolled around, I decided to just go on down to work and take a shower at the fitness center. While I was there, I struck upon the novel idea of actually working out too, which always makes me feel better and always makes me wonder why I don't do it more often. I got back home around 5:00pm, still no landlord. Now it's 6:10pm, still no landlord. As soon as I finish writing this, I'm going to call him. I should have called him earlier, but I kept giving him the benefit of the doubt. No more!

So this is really a story without an end just yet. But I hope to be able to add an ending very soon now.

-- Dave