Unbridled Joy

So I’m taking a short break from work to let my blood pressure work its way back down from the stratosphere. Here’s what swabbies do for enjoyment.

I discovered that the master switch to the engine room lights was wired backward, so it was on when it said off. I took out the panel, reversed the wires, no big deal, and screwed it back in … at which point the water pipe to the panel started leaking. Just a small steady spray.

Why is there a water pipe to an electrical panel? In a word … China. Who knows? It’s supposed to let you see if you have water to the windshield wipers … go figure.

So, I turned off the water pump, and Abraham grabbed the mop when he heard me saying bad words, we cleaned up the mess …

I figured, no problem. There was a small crack in the plastic line. I cut off the bad part, reassembled it, tightened it down … puta cabrón, still leaking.

I took it off again. It looked like it had had some sealant in it back in the day. So I got a tube of sealant that was still soft … but it refused to come out.

I found a chopstick and put it down into the tube ’til I hit good sealant. Started to squeeze out a bit … when the other end of the tube blew out, and a big glob of sealant hit the fan, as they say.

I discovered that I knew even more bad words, ones that I hadn’t even thought of in some time, involving anatomically improbable sexual acts, mixed with speculations as to the probable ancestry and unclean personal habits of whoever put the water pipe on the electrical panel … but I digress.

So after cleaning lovely red-brown sealant off of my hand and other spots, I put the sealant on, tightened it down again … still leaking! Orale pues! I figured it must not be tight enough, it’s a compression fitting. So I cranked down a bit more, one last bit … and caracoles, the whole fitting snapped in half and water started spraying everywhere. I put my thumb over the end … bad move, the fitting was too large for my thumb to seal, and all I did was increase the distance the spray traveled …

It’s a good thing that my cardiologist wasn’t watching … because he’d have had a heart attack at that point. Me, I was rendered totally speechless.

So I dived for the water pump switch again, and Abraham got the mop again, and we cleaned up again.

Then, of course, because I’d tightened it down solid, the expletive deleted hose wouldn’t come off the remaining half of the fitting. It required a plethora of unpleasant language to pry it off.

Of course, I don’t have any kind of fitting to cap the pipe off. I spent about ten minutes trying and measuring different things. I finally stuck the handle of a paintbrush in the pipe, threw on a couple of hose clamps, and cut it off short. Here’s the aftermath.

 

Broken hose with paintbrush handle at top left. Steering wheel at left. Bucket at the bottom. The potrzebie fitting the pipe used to go to is at the left of the panel. I’ve got the panel open to dry out … so far, so good.

Hey, do I know how to have fun, or what?

Best of this crazy life to everyone. I’ll write this evening on larger matters, but I had to take a moment to let the madness pass. Now, back to work …

w.