You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
My 50 gallon girl.
My gas gal.
My vented vixen.
My water heater honey.
It’s the end of an era.
Tomrrow the faucets are turned off forever and a day.
After almost 20 years, the mechanical water warmer will be put down, laid to rest, put to sleep.
The A.O. Smith model will wink at me when that garage light pops on for the last time.
Tomorrow the grim reaper of appliances will come and take her to the scrap heap in the sky.
“I can’t believe it’s lasted this long,” the plumber who pronounces her death says.
He seems unaffected, unemotional by his discovery.
I watch as he points his flash light through the cob webs into the corner, down to the floor.
“Yeah, you see that leaking there?”
His light is illuminating a small puddle that has seeped under the back stairs and is beginning to spread through the dry wall.
“It’s shot. It’s just a matter of time. One day you will come home and you’ll have water blowing all over the garage.”
I look at the 6 foot tall curved mechanism. She is beige and a little rusty near her bottom. She is a old, but sturdy, propped up on a cement block, supported by copper tubes.
I wonder if they make mechanical Depends undergarments for old gas canisters like her.
“Gas vented,” The plumber says. “you don’t see many like this anymore.”
“yeah. She’s a classic,” I say with sadness.
“They usually last 7-10 years.”
I can tell the plumber is impressed with the water heater that has been in my garage since this house was built in the mid 90’s.
I am the 3rd owner. I have been expecting her to blow a gasket for close to a decade.
Window seals have gone. I’ve put on a new roof. I have laid down carpet on top of carpet.
And still the old girl keeps churning out piping hot water.
Of all the things in my life that have come and gone and come again, she is NOT one of them.
Through hail storms and snow storms and frozen pipes, she has maintained a constant glow of warmth and immediate response to my every heating needs.
Through wicked heat and flashes of thunder that shake the foundation, she has stood steadfast, ready to deliver water at any desired temperature.
I wish every thing in my life was as dependable, as efficient, as devoted to me as my water heater honey.
Now she looks worn and tired.
I want to pat her on her head and say “Sorry old girl. I gotta put you out of your misery.”
I don’t have the heart. I can’t tell her Tuesday, a water heater man is coming over with a newer, sleeker model.
I know she will be upset. No one wants to be cast out for a younger, sleeker model. Especially when the only thing they’ve done wrong is age gracefully.
What will they do with her, I wonder.
What would be a fitting end for her, I think.
Do I sell her for scrap and buy a case of scotch and toast her long tenure of heating excellence?
Could I smelt her and scatter her molten metal in the back yard? I could erect a little copper cross in the place where the grass is forever killed by poisonous metals and lava hot metal shavings.
Do I turn her into a water heater Still and brew high octane moonshine out of her innards?
The idea is appetizing, and I can see my dumb friends coming over and getting lit to the taste of water heater hooch.
“Love that water heater flavor, Cordan.”
“Greatest water heater ever,” I tell them.
As the water heater man writes up the new order, I think about how well she did her job.
Faucet on.
HEAT.
Very little delay.
“You want to get a tankless heater?” the salesman spews still trying to rape me for more.
“Shut your mouth tin man,” I say. “She’s listening.”
He looks at me like I’ve been smoking the wacky weed.
I stare at her warning notice and I feel sad.
“Caution. Hotter water increases the risk of scalding injury. Before changing temperature setting see instructional manual.”
So concise. So pure. Words of wisdom.
My water heater was a one of a kind.
Now I gotta take her down, cut her loose, send her packing.
I think she knows she is going to the old water heater home.
I think she knew when I reached through the cob webs behind her and turned the lever that controls her water intake.
I’ve never done that before. I don’t like spiders, and I don’t like intake valves. She knows this.
I could see her little furnace hissing, thinking, boiling with questions.
“He no longer loves me,” she was thinking.
“He’s leaving me for a younger heater, a hotter heater, a metallic momma that can scald him in places that only we know about.”
I wipe a tear from my eye and think about Terrible Tuesday the day the water stopped flowing.
That’s the day that the new water heater comes and this old tried and true model is going bye bye.
The new girl is going to cost me an arm and a leg.
The new ones always do.
God’s Speed water heater momma.
I’ll miss ya. I’ll miss your curves. I’ll miss your heat. I’ll miss how I turned you on and you made me hot in return.
Life’s Crazy™