By Hobo Hudson

Dad was on the computer and I was snoozing at his feet, keeping one ear open to insure that he didn’t goof off. Suddenly, a scream shattered my peaceful interlude. I bolted with Dad on my rear paws toward the kitchen, where I sensed the scream had come from, and we found Mom standing at the sink rinsing the dishes while the water trickled out of the faucet.

Dad yelled, “What’s the matter?” Mom turned off the dribbling water and said, “There is a hole in the faucet spout.”

Dad went to the sink and opened the faucet full force. Sure enough, a stream of water jetted up and hit him right in the face. Jumping aside, he jerked the faucet handle forward to shut off the water and wiped his face with his hand. “No problem, honey,” he said. “This faucet has a lifetime warranty, and its only 25 years old. I’ll just call the company and get them to send another spout.”

Without wasting time, Dad placed a call to the company’s service department and found it didn’t have spouts of the style we needed anymore. The customer service employee told Dad to just return the entire assembly, and the company would have a new assembly shipped to him within four to six weeks of receipt of the old faucet at its new headquarters in China.

When Dad told Mom what the employee had suggested, Mom smiled and said, “That means we’ll be eating all our meals out for the two months or so until we get the new faucet because I can’t cook or wash dishes without water.” Dad, being a little fuzzy thinking sometimes, just said, “That sounds about right.”

In the middle of the night, Dad woke up in a cold sweat, remembering his conversation with Mom about the faucet and his agreeing about eating out. He kept tossing and turning and finally decided it might really be better if he just bought a new faucet and forgot about the warranty.

The next morning, Dad and I were off to the hardware store first thing after we had our breakfast. A friendly female employee helped us select a pretty faucet and inquired if Dad would also like to buy a faucet wrench and plumber’s putty. “Nope,” Dad replied. “I’ve got that.” We paid and rushed home to install the new faucet for Mom.

After Dad had collected a couple of tools he would need from the garage, he went into the house to pick up his faucet wrench, but it wasn’t there. “Do you know where my faucet wrench is?” he called out to Mom. Walking into the bathroom where Dad was standing, Mom asked him where he thought he had put it. “Right here,” Dad replied, pointing to the middle of the bathroom floor. “I distinctly remember leaving it right here when I fixed the bathroom sink about seven years ago.” Mom just shook her head and told him she had probably put it somewhere but didn’t remember where.

I heard Dad muttering that he wished Mom would leave his tools alone, and then we drove back to the hardware store to buy a wrench. The employee who helped us earlier just laughed and said, “Couldn’t find it, huh? Now, are you sure you don’t want some plumber’s putty while you’re here?”

Dad just growled that he knew he had putty at home and where it was and didn’t need any more. We paid for the wrench and returned home. Dad went back into the garage, snatched the plumber’s putty container off the shelf almost without looking and scurried into the kitchen. He swiftly removed the old faucet and opened the putty container, but the putty was as hard as a rock.

Without saying a word, he slipped out of the front door with me on his heels, and back to the hardware store we went. By now, Dad was a little embarrassed about his buying mishaps, and so we waited in front of the store and watched through the window until we saw the employee who had to come to know us very well paying full attention to another customer. We ran inside the store, grabbed a container of putty and rushed back outside after leaving some money on the cashier’s counter. As we were getting into the car, I saw the employee looking at us, waving the money and laughing.

Back home, Dad was finally able to complete the faucet project after only five hours and 30 minutes when his first estimate was about one hour and 30 minutes. About par for Dad’s work around the house.