“The Case of the Attacking Water Hose!”

I was washing off the driveway … The nozzle on the hose came on full blast! … Evidently it was broke but, I figured it would be fine for what I was going to do… My husband had cut grass  and I always get to play with the water hose and wash down everything … Yes, I’m worse than any kid… I love playing in the water! … He always saves that job for me…but, you see… I’m good at it!... I get every bit of dirt, leaves and debris there is… My porch is concrete… so worked fine on that… my sidewalk is concrete… so worked fine on that and my drive way is concrete …so worked fine on that! … As I went to try to turn the nozzle off one more time… (I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try)… It stood it’s ground…and refused to shut off… streaming water out as hard as it could … It seemed to be determined to have it’s way!… I could have held it while I went behind the bushes to cut off the water at the spigot … but, I decided I could throw it away from me onto the ground and then cut it off… The hose seemed to have made up it’s mind to come after me… As I turned to go toward the bushes the hose with this unyielding nozzle  attacked me from the side… shooting it’s forceful… concrete cleaning… spray of water from it’s mouth right into my right eyeball ... I was just stunned!… holding my eye as it watered literally… stinging like a hammer had hit it … I couldn’t see and the pain was terrific!… I cautiously stumbled my way to the backyard to find my rescuer… my husband… He asked, “What’s wrong?”… as I told my story of the “waylaying water hose” with the “naughty nozzle”… He went to tame the hose by cutting off it’s water supply  behind the bushes… as I tell him to, “BEWARE!” ... I didn’t want him to succumb to the same fate as me with the wayward water hose and it’s nasty nozzle companion .

“My Kids!”…

The school where I worked was pretty old… At one time it was a High School … this was when I was a teenager … and then I started working there when I was 32 years old… and remained until I retired at age 62… At one time Home Economics was taught in the High Schools… but, by the time I started to work… they evidently felt it was not needed anymore… I still remember the electrical plugs that were in the floor in our classroom that at one time were used for sewing machines … Yes, sewing , cooking and other everyday functions were once taught as classes in High School… The plugs were finally removed after we tripped over them so many times… This was a nice size room…bigger than the usual sized classroom and we liked that… There was also a room accessible from our room that we could use… It had a sink and a refrigerator … This is where our first baking started … and finally became “The Patriot Bake Shop” named after our school mascot … Eventually another large room was given to us with 4 areas that had one time been equipped with all of the utensils, pots/pans, skillets, blenders ,dishes, etc. …anything a normal kitchen would have… Home Ec  was taught there when it was a High School to learn cooking and baking… As years had gone by and Home Ec was not the purpose of this room anymore… the dishes, utensils, pots/pans , etc. had slowly disappeared… the stoves  and refrigerators were removed except for two… the sinks really had not been used… in other words, this room had not been kept up or used in the manner it was meant for… So we found that only two areas worked and not so well…We did our best with what was given us…and were grateful… but, as we started to find out… the stoves had some burners that didn’t work… one of the refrigerators wouldn’t keep anything cold ... the pipes were old and rusty… tiles were missing from the floor… As we began to use the sinks  and run water every day from the worn faucets …this put pressure on some very old and unattended plumbing … The sinks started to react to being used in this unusual manner… They stopped up… they overflowed and then one day after trying to tell us they were just too old and tired to do the job they had been planned for… that they needed some replacement parts… some needed repairs … the handles decided to come lose and the faucet itself exploded with a gush of water that resembled a geyser … We recalled the warnings of the handles being hard to turn off at times … of corrosion around the parts that screwed on… of the pipes pushing water back up into the sink from the drains ... These sinks had tried their best to tell us…but, we had pushed them to their limit … I’m just glad they decided a little soaking  would get the same results as a full-blown gusher … They definitely got our attention!