hell hath frozen over

no, i’m not referring to the unseasonably cold weather that we are suffering through here in the desert southwest and beyond (across the country!). having spent over 30 years in the Midwest, in areas where cold temperatures are completely useless, snow is nothing more than a nuisance you have to shovel, and you can go months on end without ever seeing the sun, i know i have no right to complain about today’s high of 42 and low of 26 degrees (Fahrenheit). but i’m not complaining about the weather. i am commenting on the fact that a constant of the universe went awry this weekend.

el Jefe’, the Punkin, and i went to Home Dept this weekend. i had found a gift card when cleaning out the junk drawer (after el Jefe’ could not find one of the three rolls of tape while wrapping presents, so he had to do a late night run to the store Christmas Eve), unused, and if the gods were smiling and it hadn’t expired it would have a $150 balance! i’m pretty sure the gift card was a minimum of two years old, maybe more, because we get gift cards from el Jefe’s dad and i’m thinking this one was way-pre-Punkin (when we had time to work on the house, making it a home, instead of our current knee-jerk emergency repair strategy). we needed furnace filters. i wanted to replace two toilet seats that were cracking and disintegrating before our very eyes. and we needed to replace two sink drain pop-up stopper assemblies. el Jefe’ had removed the inoperable stoppers, leaving a gaping hole, which is far too tempting for a toddler. of course el Jefe’ and i disagreed on the size of pop-up stopper assembly, although the shelves were clearly labeled 1 ¼” bath and 1 ½” kitchen (or vice versa), but we did agree that we hate the builder-installed faucets. unfortunately the two gaping holes were not in the same bathroom, and one of said bathrooms has two sinks, so we ended up purchasing three faucets (and associated sink drain pop-up stopper assemblies). we are practical, but we have some taste, so we upgraded a little. thank god the gift card had not expired.

one bathroom is sporting a new toilet seat and new faucet as of Sunday afternoon.

i failed to mention el Jefe’ sent me on a beer run during the faucet installation. that’s to be expected. we’ve had plenty of 12-pack projects.

but i did not omit anything else from the story.

we accomplished a home improvement (or home repair) with only ONE trip to Home Depot. one initial trip. no extra tools or supplies needed. based on our past experiences, this is nothing short of a miracle.