Category Archives: Can we build it?

Making it, or making it better.

Let the storm rage on

Can we build it?

My first job out of college was working as a temp. My primary assignment was at the temp agency’s corporate headquarters. Just graduated = June = summer in the northern hemisphere, so I showed up in slacks and a lightweight button-down shirt. Imagine my surprise when everyone in my cubicle block was wearing sweaters and fingerless gloves.

Come to find out, once upon a time, there had been a middle (micro)manager who convinced the architect to put the thermostat in his office, so he could control the temperature for everyone.

Micromanaging dude was long gone, but the thermostat was still in his former office, now occupied by the I.T. team. Three people, each with two computers, plus another couple of rack-mounted servers for their test environment, generates a lot of heat. The thermostat was convinced that it must be Very Hot Everywhere, and proceeded to blizzard blast the rest of the floor. The I.T. folks had learned to keep the door locked when they were away, because anyone who didn’t want to be an icicle would go in and shut off the air conditioning.

I asked if they had considered installing another zone, but my cube neighbor, Deb, said the price was quite high and no one could agree on which cost center should pay for it. The I.T. folks were perfectly happy with the temperature and did not accept responsibility for everyone else’s discomfort.

I asked Deb if I could borrow her office catalog, and quickly found a solution: a roll of magnetic whiteboard material. “Please order this. We’ll cut off a 24-inch square and slap it over the AC vent.”

Other folks around the floor noticed that we weren’t bundled up for winter anymore, and asked our secret. The word got out and we shared our supply. Within a few hours, all the AC vents had been blocked, except for the one in the locked I.T. office. The entire output of the air handler was now routed into this relatively small office. Luckily or unluckily, they had a return vent as well.

The I.T. team was out on an offsite meeting (eating Monte Cristo sandwiches at Chotchkie’s), so they didn’t immediately notice that there was a tornado in their office. This was in the 1990s, so there was a lot of paper, including lots of the accordion-fold green-and-white line printer paper, originally stacked up but now whirling in a paper blizzard. When they got back from lunch and opened the door, it all blew out into the hallway.

They came over to me (somehow, they knew it was me) and said, “You win. We’ll pay to install another zone.”

Puttin’ It on Wax

Behind the scenes, Can we build it?, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

When I was in high school, I worked in several different professional theatre companies around Worcester. I got my start at Worcester Children’s Theatre, where I met Brian Tivnan. He hired me to be on the run crew at his company, Worcester Forum Theatre Ensemble.

Forum Theatre had their space at 6 Chatham Street in Worcester. The building originally housed the YWCA, and the black box theatre space was once a small bowling alley. The design team made creative use of the space, so you never knew from one production to the next where the stage would be, or where the audience would sit. However, the audience always entered through the door in the southeast corner, and there was a door in the northwest corner of the room that led to a small dressing room.

The problem was that depending on the configuration of the production, once an actor was backstage, they usually couldn’t leave the backstage area without being seen by the audience. And there was no toilet in the dressing room. This led to some creative solutions involving coffee cans, but no one was happy with the situation.

While there was no exit from the backstage area, there was a door in the back of the dressing room that led to an even smaller fan room. As I was often the first one to arrive, I would have to go through the dressing room into the fan room to turn on the air conditioner that cooled the theatre.

There was a small patch of sticky goop on the floor of the fan room that we usually just avoided. The space was permanently disgusting, so it never occurred to anyone to try to clean it up. But one of our actors was a handyman, and he recognized the goop for what it really was: the remains of a wax ring that had once sealed a toilet to a drain pipe. Upon hearing this news, the actors spoke with one voice: get us a toilet in here immediately.

Eliza, the managing director, took our request to the landlord. The landlord dispatched the facilities manager, Frank, to scope out the situation. Frank looked at the pipe, and scratched his head, and swore, but he was usually scratching himself and he always swore, so we discounted that. Eventually he ran a small copper line with running water into the fan room, and hooked it up to a brand new toilet.

Downstairs from the theatre space/bowling alley, there was a radio station: WICN Public Radio, still going strong today, although they have since moved to new accommodations. They had set up their massive record library in what had once been the shallow end of the swimming pool, with their offices and studio in the old locker room area.

After a few days of the actors using the toilet, the folks at WICN noticed a distinct odor. They complained to the landlord, and Frank was sent to investigate. He found his way to the room underneath the fan room and followed the drain pipe. At this point in the story, he did not communicate to anyone what he found, but simply said “It’s all fixed.”

We learned later that what he found was a drain pipe that left the toilet, continued south for about twelve feet, and ended abruptly. There had been a rag stuffed in the end of the pipe. The first flush had dislodged the rag and all the waste had landed on the floor of this sub-basement space.

Frank cleaned up the sewage from the floor and stuffed the rag back in the pipe. All fixed, indeed.

About a day later, as anyone but Frank would expect, the smell returned. This time, he bought a rubber stopper to replace the rag. All fixed.

Another day, another smell. This time he wrapped wire around the rubber stopper to keep it from coming out.

On the fourth day, the landlord asked Frank to show her what was going on. I wish I had been a fly on the wall for that conversation… there were plenty of flies by that point, but if they heard what was said, they didn’t tell.

We never saw Frank again. I can’t say anyone missed him. The new facilities manager, Dave, asked us to stop using the toilet for a while. He replaced the missing section of drain pipe with new PVC pipe, and it really was all fixed.

I wish I could say that was the last time we interfered with the radio station, but that’s a story for another day.

Higher and higher

Can we build it?

When I went to vote on Tuesday, I brought Nate with me. As we walked through the parking lot, we heard singing. A woman was singing. A black woman was singing. She was singing a spiritual—a song of hope and faith. And she was walking slowly towards the polling place.

I stopped to let her go by. I turned to Nate, tears in my eyes, and said, “Remember this. Remember that woman, and her song.”

Of course, he asked why, but I didn’t want to explain the historical significance of the moment. He is five years old, and he lost a big chunk of his innocence when he lost his mom. I don’t think he needs to know about slavery just yet. I don’t know if he could understand. I don’t know if he would believe me.

We have done so very many things to be ashamed of.

He will learn history, in time. But for now, I am proud that Nathaniel has no idea why a black woman voting for a black man should be at all noteworthy. For him, this is the way things have always been.

And I am terribly, terribly proud that I lived to see this day.

It gives me just a little bit of hope for the future.

Spinning into glory

Can we build it?

Q: What do you call it when you decide to wash your son’s snow boots in the washing machine, which not only completely destroys said washing machine, but also shrinks the boot liners, necessitating the purchase of new boots and a new washing machine?

A: A total wash.

Honorable mention goes to Nancy, who responded, “Taking yourself to the cleaners.”

With old-fashioned flavor in every bite

Can we build it?

Please enjoy this classic post from the previous incarnation of my website, circa 2000.

Twinkie Lamp

“Are those Twinkies in there?”

Yes; yes, I’m afraid they are. They’ve been in there for over ten years now, I think. I have the dated receipt around here somewhere. When this picture was taken, it was closer to five or six years. But they still look pretty much the same. I mean, you can tell they’re old; you wouldn’t want to eat one. But then, a lot of people wouldn’t want to eat one even if it were fresh.

I got the lamp out of the basement of an apartment building on Highland Street, where it had been abandoned. I claimed it as my own, to furnish my first college apartment. The lamp was empty then, of course, but it was obvious we would have to put something in it. The guidelines were simple:

  • It had to be relatively light, because it was sitting on a flimsy table.
  • It couldn’t involve water, since it is after all an electric lamp and I didn’t feel like making the effort to do it safely.
  • It couldn’t be anything that would require attention, such as an ant farm, nightcrawlers, or food, which would rot or mold or attract pests.

We got a lot of suggestions. Colored sand or marbles were popular; both would have collapsed the table. Potpourri or scarves were deemed too girly. And M&Ms or other colorful candy… well, I suspect that would have become an ant farm in very short order. Finally we put it as the outgoing message on our answering machine: What should we put in the lamp?

My friend Tom left a message later that week. “Twinkies, man, I told you. F—in’ Twinkies.” *beep*

So Tom, Tim and I went to Crosby’s and bought six boxes of Twinkies. That turned out to be way too many, so after we were done cramming them in there, we ate the ones that didn’t fit (almost two boxes). I haven’t wanted to eat a Twinkie since then.

We took it next door to the Kitchen Witch to show Becky. She just laughed and said we were crazy, which was pretty much what she said every time we said or did anything.

Then we took it next door to show Bill at the convenience store. A girl was walking out as we were walking in, and she said, “Those things are gonna mold.”

I said, “They’re not going to mold. There’s nothing in them that mold would want to eat.”

She said, “I know mold, and those things are gonna mold.”

Tom laughed out loud. “You know mold? What does that even mean?” She stormed off, but I knew I was right. They’re individually wrapped, after all, and I’m pretty sure if they haven’t grown mold by now, they aren’t going to.

Feed me, Seymour

Can we build it?, Sarah

I actually enjoy working on our little house. I was inordinately proud of myself when I fixed the leaky faucet in the kitchen, for instance, or when I replaced the fugly chandelier in the dining room.

Sarah was always my cheering squad; she just loved that I was so handy. When she moved in with me, I noticed that her bookshelf was about to fall apart, so I laid it on its side, glued it back together and piled some weights on it to help it hold until the glue dried. It wasn’t much, but she was just thrilled by how matter-of-fact I was about it. It was busted, I fixed it, no big deal.

That said, there are a few things about home ownership that I do not enjoy. One of them is yard care. When we bought the house, it came with what is euphemistically known as “mature landscaping.” The wisteria had swallowed the back fence and was working on the maple tree. It had torn down the gutter downspout and was working its way into the bedroom window.

Wisteria, for those of you who may not be familiar with it, is insidious. It grows inches a day and can span great distances by twining around itself. I saw it reach up a good six feet into thin air to climb back into the maple tree after I cut it down. It will strangle you in your sleep if you aren’t careful. Sarah insisted that it was beautiful when it bloomed, but after three years, it never did. Last summer, she was no longer around to defend it, and I cut it to the ground. It’s still there, but I think I have the upper hand. I just can’t countenance a plant that requires twenty-four hour supervision to prevent it from killing all the other plants and lifting my house off its foundation.

We have a glorious star magnolia in the front yard that just finished its annual florgasm. We have many healthy hostas. We have an extremely enthusiastic honeysuckle that has almost completely devoured the yew bush on the corner. We have a bunch of nearly-dead rhododendrons that I am not sure what to do with. (I didn’t even know that rhododendrons were supposed to flower until I saw a picture a few weeks ago.) And we have at least a hundred other plants, bushes and flowers that I cannot identify, to the extent of being unable to tell whether they are weeds or not, or even whether they are alive or not.

One of my neighbors is a gardener, and he was kind enough to point out that I had some six-foot milkweeds growing out front: “Those are weeds, by the way.” Good to know. I ripped them out, and darn if they didn’t grow right back. Last summer, every night, as soon as we got home, we would go over to the honeysuckle corner and search for milkweed shoots.

A little research revealed that milkweed is a rhizome. I picture it as an evil snake that lurks far below, sending up shoots but never revealing its true self. I don’t know how it manages to survive with no sunlight, because I get those shoots the second they break the surface. But they keep coming.

So, I am slowly learning what I don’t like: plants that will take over my entire yard if I don’t pay close attention to them. Milkweed, bad. Wisteria, bad. Hostas I like, because they stay where you put them. I know enough to uproot maple seedlings before they get too big. But I don’t even know what else is thriving in my yard, plotting to destroy me.

Finally, we have a little garden out back. Strawberries, tulips, maybe some chives. Raised beds, a fence. It was beautiful, once. It could be again, but it needs a lot of work, and someone to care for it. I can take direction, but Sarah was the gardener of the family. She fed and watered; she nurtured and pruned; she sang little growing songs. Now termites have eaten the fence, and the weeds grow up to the sky.

The Drops From The Faucet

Can we build it?

House-hunting is a very strange experience. I believe that this is because people are strange. We looked at some truly ugly homes with some truly inexplicable furnishings, and had a wonderful time mocking the sellers.

When we first looked at the house we would eventually buy, the bathtub faucet was dripping. When we came back for a second look, it was dripping more. When we came back for the home inspection, the inspector naturally turned on the tub faucet to see how quickly the water would drain. He had a great deal of trouble getting the water to shut off.

After our first night in the new house, Sarah let me know that she would quickly go insane if she had to listen to the dripping for very much longer. My first project would therefore be to repair it.

Now, my actual first project whenever I move into a new place is to remove the existing showerhead and install the Waterpik Hand-Held Shower Massage unit. This only took me five minutes, and I turned my attention to the tub faucet. I discovered that there was no cutoff valve for the tub, and so I was forced to turn off the water to the entire house in order to disassemble the faucet.

There were no identifying marks on the faucet, but I could clearly see the source of the leak. One of the rubber seals in the cartridge was worn. Off I went to Home Depot, where their motto is, “Our prices are so low, we can lie to your face and you’ll still come back for more!”

The indifferent Plumbing Sales Associate obviously had no idea what brand my faucet was. He didn’t have any seals that would fit, but he sold me some new springs and told me to use the worn seals with the new springs. The springs were just a bit too big, so naturally when I installed them, the forty-year-old rubber seals disintegrated. The leak was now much worse; in fact it was closer to a gush.

Taking a shower was now a team effort: one person in the basement at the master cutoff valve, and the other person in the tub, yelling OKAY TURN IT ON NOW.

Off I went to the local plumbing supply store. Lots of plumbers were queued up at the parts counter. When it was my turn, I held out the cartridge. The Counter Sales Associate looked at obviously-not-a-plumber me, and said, “What the hell is that?”

“I was hoping you could tell me.”

“No idea. Next!”

One of the plumbers who was waiting for his order to be pulled took pity on me. He said, “I think I have an old part like that in my truck; you can have it if you want.” We went to look. It was exactly the same part, and it was worn in exactly the same place.

“Thanks anyway,” I said. “You don’t happen to know the make and model?”

He grinned. “I sure do. It’s Price Pfister, the pfaucet with the pfunny name. And I got a pfeeling you’re probably pf*cked; nobody carries these parts around here.”

I laughed and thanked him again. I might not be a plumber, but I do have some specialized knowledge of my own. It took me about five minutes on Price Pfister’s web site to track down exactly which faucet I had (The Bodyguard), two minutes to find an exploded-view drawing with part numbers, five seconds to sneer at the idea of ordering parts through the friendly neighborhood plumbing supply store, and three minutes to order a new cartridge from a plumbing supply house in Pennsylvania.

I was feeling pretty proud of my elite Internet skills, until I happened to look under the sink in the bathroom for a bar of soap. I saw the showerhead that I had removed in Chapter One, which clearly said “Price Pfister Bodyguard” on the face.

In due course, the new cartridge arrived and was installed. The leak… continued. I looked more closely at the valve plate, and discovered that the previous homeowner had allowed the worn seal to leak for so long that it had etched a good-sized hole in the solid brass plate. It must have taken years.

I went back to Minnesota and ordered a new valve stem assembly, complete with washers and O-rings. Finally the leak stopped, along with the constant stream of curses. Sarah was most relieved.

We thought that was the end of it, and set about our myriad other home improvement projects.

Almost a year later, there came a knock at the door. It was a friendly young man from the town’s Department of Public Works. He said that his office had happened to notice that the average water bill for our address had dropped significantly, from about two hundred dollars a quarter to just over thirty dollars a quarter. He wondered if we would mind terribly allowing him to examine our water meter for signs of my having jammed a piece of coathanger wire into the impeller, possibly in an effort to lower my water bill. I showed him the worn valve plate, and we both marveled at the strange and wonderful variety of stone-cold crazy people in the world today.

Update: Apparently this post is now the number-one result on Google for people with leaky faucets. Hi there. How are you? I’ve added a couple of links so you can get your own Price Pfister parts. If you have a leaky Water Pik hand-held shower massage, for Pete’s sake, just buy a new one. They’re only twenty bucks.