{"id":206,"date":"2012-09-10T13:31:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-10T13:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tellest.com\/the-proboscis-prognosis\/"},"modified":"2013-08-08T21:07:43","modified_gmt":"2013-08-08T21:07:43","slug":"the-proboscis-prognosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/the-proboscis-prognosis\/","title":{"rendered":"The Proboscis Prognosis"},"content":{"rendered":"

You can’t write better fiction than this.<\/p>\n

I’ve said before that there are minor distractions in my life that don’t really have any effect on when the third book should be done.\u00a0 You’d be surprised at how much something can affect the other things that go on around your life though.<\/p>\n

About two weeks ago, our clothes washer stopped draining properly.\u00a0 I tried my hand at it first, but no matter how intently I stared at the device, I just couldn’t bring it back to life.\u00a0 On Thursday, I had a repairman out, and basically told me that the pump was bad.\u00a0 It was pretty much what I suspected, but diagrams online weren’t really helping to explain where the pump was.\u00a0 I was looking for it in an entirely different area of the washer.\u00a0 So he came in and told me what was wrong, and how to fix it, so that I wouldn’t be charged an arm and a leg for what would have been a fifteen minute job.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Two days later, I tried my hand at fixing it.\u00a0 We have a joke around the house that Rhianna’s hair is ruining everything.\u00a0 She’s a beautiful ginger – it’s easy to spot her locks when their wrapped around the vacuum cleaner roller, or clogged in the tub.\u00a0 I teased her that if I found her hair in the washer, and if that was what was causing the pump to malfunction, she would get us a new washer.<\/p>\n

Lo and behold, what did I find but a clump of lint reinforced by an outer shell of her hair in the pump.\u00a0 It was so robust that I didn’t have the dexterity to remove it with my hands.\u00a0 I had to use a set of long needlenose pliers to liberate that pump paralyzing beastie.\u00a0 Of course at that point, she was\u00a0embarrassed, and bemoaning, yet lamenting her hair.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

After I nursed the washer back to health as best I could, I began running a litany of tests on it.\u00a0The pump kicked on, and it seemed like everything\u00a0was going to be good.\u00a0 I noticed, then, that it was raining beneath the washer.\u00a0 There was a waterfall that was churning directly under the counterweight when the device was filling, so I\u00a0put a saucepan under there to collect whatever precipitation I could.\u00a0 Over the course of this brilliant break-fix, I realize that the test is going to go into overflow mode – it’s filling beyond what I can safely gather in the saucepan, so I call for reinforcements.<\/p>\n

Rhianna, bless her heart, ran in like the house was on fire.\u00a0 All I wanted was a cup to free up some of the water in the saucepan, but she treated it with the utmost urgency.\u00a0 She dumped the first cup of water in the sink in our bathroom, and then – THWACK!<\/p>\n

Instantly, her protest shook the house.\u00a0 She came into the laundry room with a new gash on her nose, and laughed merrily at her coordination.\u00a0 Fifteen seconds later, that laughter morphed into uncontrollable weeping.<\/p>\n

This woman\u00a0and I haven’t been together for a year yet,\u00a0but we have a remarkably strong connection.\u00a0 In our time together, we haven’t had a single fight.\u00a0 I’ve seen her cry in mourning, or because of something that she sees in a movie or a television show, but I’ve never seen her cry in pain.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Keep in mind that at that point, I was\u00a0trapped underneath the washer.\u00a0 I still\u00a0had a typhoon brewing right above my head, and a girlfriend bawling her eyes out and cursing up and down the house.<\/p>\n

Over the next two days, things settled down a bit.\u00a0 Rhianna’s nose doesn’t hurt any longer, and there’s no bruise, but the reminder is still there in the form of dried blood that’ll scab over soon.\u00a0 She’s already able to laugh at herself and the situation, and even put this gem up on Facebook:<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Needless to say, the washer is still not fixed.\ufeff<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can’t write better fiction than this. I’ve said before that there are minor distractions in my life that don’t really have any effect on when the third book should be done.\u00a0 You’d be surprised at how much something can affect the other things that go on around your life though. About two weeks ago, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[57],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1UVey-3k","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206\/revisions\/263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tellest.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}