Getting to know you---the house, that is

Once you've seen the war zone created by a hot water tank blowing off steam, you've seen enough for a lifetime. Trust me. I know.

One year about a week before Thanksgiving, I came home to our house on Great Northern Road to discover a lake flowing from the utility room through the hallway into the kitchen and even onto the living-room carpet. Our hot-water tank had blown.

In a nutshell, repairs cost $2,800. That included carpet, linoleum and new water tank. That cost did not include the inconvenience and disruption we encountered for the next week or two while dealing with repairs.

I thought we were in for another similar event yesterday morning when I came inside from watering my flowers to go to the bathroom. It was post-latte time, so quick trips to the bathroom are part of my morning routine. While in the bathroom, I began to hear a roar.

It sounded like heavy equipment making its way down the road. As I left the bathroom, however, the sound got louder in the kitchen. It was obviously not out on the road but inside the house.

I followed the roar to the door where the hot-water tank is almost completely blocked from view by at least four feet of cookbooks, old mail, bags, River Journals, financial folders, boxes, and dozens of other sundries----not in any particular order but heaved inside the door at various times to live in the "catch-all" room that doubles as a water-tank home.

An open door revealed precisely the origin for the sound. On top of the mess, I found the user's manual for the hot water tank. DO NOT PUT FLAMMABLE MATERIALS NEAR THE TANK.

For some reason that "danger" warning jumped off the page as my suddenly disordered mind scurried in circles, wondering "what to do, what to do." My first inclination was that the tank was getting ready for blast-off and was being nice enough to issue a warning prior to zero-minus one second and counting.

And, when I saw that user's manual warning, I knew I was in deep trouble if that tank decided to blow. I worried not so much about personal injury but more about personal embarrassment if the water tank aficionados came to my house and saw all that junk stored inside the tank room.

So, I started removing boxes, each time saying a quick "Hail Mary" for my personal safety. Those boxes and all that junk would be out of sight should the repairman come to fix the tank.

The roar persisted. Disordered mind got off task with a brilliant thought. Go turn off the breaker switch to the hot water tank, it told me. So I did.

The roar persisted.

Go turn off the breaker switch to the whole house, the mind then suggested. So, I did.

The roar continued to persist.

Hmmm. Why does the water heater keep threatening to blow up when it's not even getting any juice? Now, that WAS a dilemma that my disordered mind could not even contemplate. So, I decided to call the neighbors whose son is a plumber.

Well, disorderly thinking received an additional jolt. The telephone didn't work. Oh yeah, they're working on Selle Road today. Service has probably been interrupted. I used my cell phone and tried to call them. Their telephone didn't work either. Then, I tried Bill's office, three times, and three times, there was only one ring at the other end. Nobody answered.

This was beginning to seem a little spooky. My hot water tank would blow up, and I couldn't even call anyone to tell them.

In the midst of it all, I removed a few more boxes and piles of junk. The potential embarrassment of having stored so many "flammable" materials near my water tank superseded all other concerns. So, I remained on task, even hiding most of the boxes upstairs so nobody would even have a clue they had been residing in the illegal tank closet.

Once that was completed, I got in the car and drove over to the Kaubles. They agreed that their phone was, indeed, dead. So, I started asking questions about the possibilities of my water tank roar.

Ron, Sr. couldn't imagine what it could be, especially if it kept up when the electricity was off. Bev assured me that if I hadn't figured it out by late afternoon, they'd send their son Ron, Jr., the plumber, over.

So, I came back home and decided to go about my business of getting some things done. After all, no phones seemed to be working, so I had no choice but to let nature take its course. Within minutes, however, I heard a car pull up. It was Bev and Ron, who decided to come over to see and hear for themselves what the matter might be.

Ron tinkered with the tank, turned the water hydrant off, checked everything out and remained puzzled as to what could be causing the roar. Eventually, I tried the cell phone again and did get in touch with Johnson Heating and Cooling.

"Would you know what might cause a hot water tank to roar when the electricity is turned off?" I asked the receptionist.

"No," she said.

"I didn't expect you to know," I said.

She said she could call the technician who happened to be in Clark Fork, out of cell phone range. I gave her my number and asked her to call whenever he got back in cell phone range. After hanging up and doing some more head scratching along with the Kaubles, I thought of one more slim possibility.

"I wonder if I turned the outside water off when I came in to go to the bathroom," I said. "Let me go check." Walking to the deck, I bent down to the hydrant under the deck and discovered it was still running. I turned it off.

The roar stopped instantly.

We cheered with relief and, to save a little face, I rationalized to the kind Kaubles why so much commotion had ensued. Of course, I'm never inside to listen to a roar while watering my posies. And, of course, now I've learned something new about my house after three years of never once hearing the outdoor water hydrant roar inside.

And, of course, now that the water tank isn't gonna blow up, with time, that convenient catch-all room is probably gonna fill up with flammable materials once more.

Another crazy day in the life at the Lovestead. And, I'm not even gonna tell you about the afternoon session with the horse trailer hitch slipping off the ball onto the ground! Or, how I learned about handy-man jacks and how hard to push that lever for the jack to lock into working mode.

I'll save that story for another day.