Issue #36 If You Want To Make God Laugh
There has been a small war taking place in my kitchen for the past two years.
Well, perhaps war is too strong a word.
I’ll dial down to “discussion”.
Discussion with attitude.
Most of the attitude has been, admittedly, on my side.
My husband has been the voice of reason and I have been the obstinate mule.
Once upon a time our kitchen was in great need of a makeover.
This was not one of those cute “let’s make our kitchen look like a magazine cover” projects. Rather, it was more of a “let’s make our kitchen not look like a falling apart mess” project.
When we bought our house, we inherited the world’s ugliest harvest gold sink with a cheap faucet that we replaced at least twice inside of six years.
Accompanying the sink was a laminate counter that was heaving up at the seams and so rotted in the area above the dishwasher that, if you unwisely opened the dishwasher door – say to actually put dishes in or, heaven forbid, take them back out again - the whole unit pitched towards the floor.
There were lots of other problems (including the fact that the border collie puppy chewed up the vinyl floor – see newsletter #29) but today we are focusing on the sink area.
In 2005 the internet had become a thing and you could sort of be your own contractor and shop online for high-end sinks, faucets and even countertops. So, determined to break the cycle of cheap stuff in need of constant replacement, I got to work and sourced a fireclay farm sink and an extremely expensive Blanco gooseneck faucet with wrist blades. (That faucet had a lifetime warranty – keep track of that, we will be circling back to it.)
In case you don’t know, wrist blade faucets were a terrific idea – you could turn the water on and off with your wrists, or even your elbows (heck, maybe even your feet) when your hands were covered with stuff like frosting or grease or (ich) the bacteria from handling raw meat.
In my opinion, this faucet was the most practical kitchen design known to man.
I loved it.
I treasured it.
And, when the cartridges in those wrist blades went bad and started to leak, we took advantage of the lifetime warranty and replaced them.
Twice I think.
Until the day that Blanco informed us they no longer made our type of faucet and we could not get anymore cartridges.
Apparently, “lifetime” means “until we don’t feel making, or supporting, these anymore”.
Blanco said they could send us a replacement at no cost if we had the original paperwork.
I have no idea what kind of replacement they would have sent us because (of course) enough years had now gone by that, despite an exhaustive search, the paperwork was nowhere to be found.
So much for my plan of investing in longevity.
In the meantime, the gods of kitchen fixture design decided that my type of faucet was passé and refused to offer anything even remotely similar.
Instead, in their infinite wisdom, they have herded everyone over to the single column “gear shift on the side” faucet with a pull down sprayer.
I cannot begin to tell you how much I loathe such a faucet. I especially cannot begin to tell you this because there would be nothing in the sentence but profanity.
My husband has been extremely patient, but also highly frustrated, with my intransigence on this subject.
The leaks have gotten so bad that, for the past six months, we have actually had to keep the hot water valve under the sink shut off except when actually doing dishes.
Oh, I forgot to mention the part where the dishwasher has now been non-functioning for three years.
We spend a LOT of time doing dishes.
My plan has been to keep mopping up after the leaks while waiting for the faucet designers to come to their senses and bring back something even remotely similar to what I have.
Yes.
Well.
I came home from work on Friday to this:
Apparently, earlier in the day, the faucet exploded.
Yes.
Actually exploded.
The top part shot off and landed in the sink and there was water, water everywhere.
Sometimes, God or the universe, or whoever just takes charge.
Debate over.
Luckily the hubby was home.
And, even more luckily, he is very handy and absolutely up to the job of getting everything shut off and cleaned up and a new faucet installed.
In fact, he is so very handy that, when the old faucet stubbornly refused to come out and there were no tools the right shape or size to remedy the situation, he made this:
If you look closely you will see that he has cut up the sheet metal from an old neighborhood watch sign.
A story for another time.
I now have had to make my peace with a stupid gearshift faucet but at least we found one with a side sprayer instead of that darned pull down thing.
Small comfort…
Copyright© 2023 Anne Morse Hambrock All rights reserved.
Holiday Kitchen
Tis the season!
I’ll be making these for about the next two weeks…
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