I'm not what you might call a noticer

Our kitchen faucet had been dripping for a while. I don't really know how long. I don't tend to notice things like that right away. When I did notice, I told Sarah, and she said it had been doing it "forever." Like I said, I'm not what you might call a noticer.

Anyway, I didn't really care all that much. Until I figured out (at 6:30 this morning) that it was the hot water that was dripping. My money! Literally going down the drain with each drip! But I wanted to keep that money!!!!

The faucet itself was really old, so instead of trying to fix it, I figured I'd just buy a new one. It's really a simple job (so long as you don't mind the second mortgage--"Oh, you want a faucet? That'll be $150,000). Famous last words. Step one, use the hot and cold water shut off valves to turn off the water to the faucet. Cold water off? Check. Hot water off? No. Turn the valve the other way. Hot water off? Still no. Turn the valve back the first way, harder this time. Hot water off? No!! Turn it until the skin comes off your hand. Hot water off? Not quite. Nooooooooooooooo!!!!! So much for a simple job.

Find a bucket? Check. Get sprinkled by slowly leaking hot water shut-off valve? Check. Get the cat out of the bucket? Check. Get the cat out of my face? Check. Get the other cat out of the bucket? Check. Let the dog out? Check. Let the dog back in? Check. Drop the pets off at the animal shelter? Tomorrow. Two hours later, I'd taken off the old faucet, gone to Lowe's, gotten a new faucet, and installed it.

Take care of the leaky faucet? Check. Take care of the leaky shut-off valve? I don't think so. Now that we have a new faucet, hopefully I won't have to shut the hot water off again before we move. Leave a funny surprise for the future owner of the house? Check.