Hapi and I have named ourselves The FAT Club which is short for The Forever Aloners Together Club. If you don't understand what that means, you're probably not up with the vernacular. Anyway, ever since Hapi started working at the same school where I've been teaching since last year, we have had our FAT adventures, usually on weekends. This weekend will go down in the annals of FAT adventures.
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| It's kind of a funny story, really. |
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| In fact, it was a rather death defying adventure! |
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| Hapi and I are moving to an apartment. We decided to be like Martha Stewart and go clean first. |
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| My main purpose was to EXTERMINATE the roaches! |
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| Smurfette, the blue pick-up truck, has been in the shop for repairs all week. I was able to bring her to school this morning, though. The streets near the apartment are extremely small, but since I had a vacuum cleaner, I thought it would smarter to drive to the apartment. It was actually a last-minute decision (I was just going to park at a nearby mall), but as you shall soon find out, it was extremely providential! |
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| I was busy cleaning the kitchen. Hapi had decided to heroically conquer the bathroom. Suddenly I heard her gasp and say, "Oh no!" |
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| I thought perhaps she was a little flipped. She was only cleaning the bathroom! |
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| I looked in, and there she was, gazing at the hole in her life. The faucet had fallen off and water was spraying everywhere. |
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| We are not plumbers and we did not have anyone with man skills. |
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| However, we thought we had enough training to be handywomen. Hapi decided to leave the hole, now resembling a scale version of Niagara Falls, and look for the main faucet outside. We didn't find one right away, so she went back into the house to try to stop the flood. Meanwhile, I had found the water meter. |
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| The only problem was that we didn't have tools to turn the valve off. I decided to go back inside to check on Hapi. |
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| When I went in, I found Hapi stuck to the wall like a girl in a cage. There was water all over the place. |
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| Were we going to end up like castaways??? |
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| Would we have to make the decision whether to sink or swim? |
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| Or would we just end up drowning??? |
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| So there we were, stuck with a gushing wall and no tools. Story of my life. Actually, I wasn't stuck. Hapi was. |
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| Well, I'm not a girl genius unfortunately. I didn't know what to do. |
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| We put together our strategic IQ. That's when I remembered Smurfette! There had to be tools somewhere! I tore outside but I couldn't find any tools. |
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| Why aren't there tools around when you need them??? |
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| Hapi was still glued to the wall, so she told me to call her dad. Her dad laughed at us and then told me to go find a hardware store and buy pliers. |
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| Unfortunately, there were no thunderbirds available to rescue us, so I had to go look for that hardware store. |
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| Hapi was still going strong. She had not reached her limit yet! |
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| I told her, "You can do it, man! Dare to dream!" (Ok, I didn't really...) |
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| Poor Hapi thought she'd be there until the breaking dawn. |
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| I then said goodbye to Hapi... |
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| ...and she braced herself for what probably felt like a two week wait. |
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| I knew this was going to be a race through time! |
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| I tore out of the house, all guns blazing! Go, go, go Power Rangers! |
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| I ran one direction and then another. Then I saw the hardware store! Alas, it was all closed up. I asked a bystander about nearby hardware stores but he said they were all closed. Seriously?! |
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| I just knew there HAD to be a real simple solution. |
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| I got back to the house and told Hapi the bad news. She didn't go nuts. |
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| I think she had accepted it and was calmly waiting for normal. |
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| Unfortunately there was a dead roach and several worms floating around in the water. She couldn't squish them because she was too busy holding back the tidal wave. |
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| All of a sudden, I had the genius idea to check the truck again. There was no way my dad had left the truck completely tool-less! I checked the glove compartment this time and voila! Tools!!! |
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| I think shut off the water with the strength of a tiny titan. |
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| Hapi danced with glee when it was all over. |
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| Too bad she forgot her soap. She could have taken a bath! |
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| They say that every city tells a story. This time we were part of it. |
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| If we wrote a book about it, it might even end up being a best seller! |
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| So yun. That's my story. Congratulations to Hapi for holding back the tidal wave while I ran around doing totally unnecessary things in an attempt to shut off the water. |
Epilogue:
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| We were able to finish cleaning after all. |
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| Hapi was so wet that she had to go buy a whole new outfit at Market Market. Thankfully clothes are cheap here! She picked out the same shirt I have which means now we have a FAT uniform! Rock on, dudette! |
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| What a day! Pizza and milk tea were a necessity. |
We ended our epic adventures by going to Fully Booked to take pictures of titles so that I could share our adventure with you. Our last hurrah was when I nearly fell in the parking lot on the way to the truck. Go me!
