I like to think of myself as a modern-thinking guy when it comes to gender roles in our household. I'm fine if Karen wants to have a career or doesn't want to have a career. I do my share of the housework. I don't feel the need to be the driver every time we go somewhere in the car. I will watch the occasional Oprah. (But not The View! That's the kind of show that keeps me going back to the office every day.)
Of course, there is a tradeoff with all of this. I will not also fill all of the traditional duties that my father's generation took care of. I don't want to nor do I feel compelled to manage our budget. A woman can handle a snowblower just as well as a guy can. And you'd better have low expectations when it comes to household repair and home improvement. My dad can't cook a pork chop but he can single-handedly put on an entire addition to a house. Sadly, these particular genes didn't roll downhill to me, and there's nothing in my liberal arts schooling or years of office-based employment to counteract this. As my grandfather once pointed out, "I was never very good at home improvement stuff but your dad is really good. That skill must skip generations in our family." And just like that he threw himself and his grandson under the bus.
This non-skill was never more evident than in a recent incident involving a leak in our daughter's bathroom. I'm not completely useless around the house -- I can do a few minor things without blowing up the place. But if you want something complicated done then we're going to have to call in the experts. It was in this vein that I tried to pin down the source of the leak in Jenna's tub spout, thinking it was low-risk for household destruction and insurance adjuster visits.
My Holmesian detection skills eventually determined that the source of the slow drip-drip from the spout probably originated in the faucet where water flow and temperature were governed. I started looking for a way to get at a washer in the assembly which I figured was the real culprit. In the back of my mind I had a whisper of a thought that maybe I should turn off the water but figured I wasn't going to go that far into plumbing innards. (<sniff> <sniff> Yes, this has the faint aroma of foreshadowing.)
After some superficial poking around I found a way to unscrew the faucet handle cover. Or what I thought was the faucet handle cover. After a couple of twists it came loose and an immediate geyser of water burst from where I had just removed the cover, which we all know now wasn't just the cover but the entire assembly. If the fire department ever has to show up to extinguish roaring flames in our house, I would be happy if their hoses produced half the water pressure flying out of Jenna's shower right now.
My brain now operated on two levels. At a superficial level I immediately attempted to put the faucet assembly back on while this torrent of water began to fill the tub. At a lower level I felt like I was in a classic sitcom situation. With all of the water pressure there was no way I was getting that faucet back on. But I made a game attempt anyway, completely drenching myself in a futile effort while also mentally running through my catalog of Seinfeld and Three's Company episodes to recall if any applied here.
After about 10 seconds of that aquatic insanity I realized the clock was ticking before the house would be flooded. The pressure was such that the water stream bursting from the pipe reached the opposite wall of the tiled shower/tub area in a straight line. I finally dropped the faucet assembly and flew down two flights of stairs to the basement to find the water shutoff valve. Along the way I tried to confidently convey to my daughter, in a .8 second window as I passed her on the couch, that I had 1) encountered a minor problem in her bathroom, 2) was going to shut off the water in the house, and 3) Don't be alarmed! Everything's under control! Your dad knows what to do!
As luck would have it I found the shutoff valve fairly quickly. One of the arrows in my meager quiver of household usefulness is knowing where to shut off the water to our lawn sprinkler system. I found a similar-looking valve lower in the copper piping, turned it off, and listened as water gradually stopped moving through our pipes. Now, back upstairs to assess the damage.
There was a fair bit of standing water but nothing cataclysmic. More concerning were the faucet parts strewn about the tub. They had come flying out with the explosion of water and I had no idea how they went back together. This was like putting together a puzzle with no picture on the cover of the box. The one guiding principle I kept in mind was, "Having parts left over is not good."
I'm sure you will be shocked -- SHOCKED -- to learn that I was not able to successfully put the faucet back together myself. Much later I learned that two small key parts had slipped down the drain in the torrent of water. So I was NEVER going to get this thing together without help. At that point I initiated my "break glass in case of emergency" option of last resort: call Dad.
When I'm out of my league around the house -- which is often -- my dad can usually restore order. I feel bad that if Jenna is in a similar situation in her house later on in life she's going to call me and I'll come over, wander around earnestly but cluelessly, and then help her look up a plumber on the Googlenet. My dad did some hemming and hawing, figured out the puzzle without the cover picture, spear-headed a quick trip to Home Depot, and got the thing working again. The faucet was restored, the water was turned on, and people could pee again.
Most of the couples in my generation that I know have an overlap of skills: both can do laundry, both can cook, both can hold down a corporate job. But many of us have gaps in these skills that require outside help that older generations handled themselves. Maybe my dad can't do a load of laundry but he can do a bunch of other stuff I've never gotten the hang of which is his contribution to a balanced household. That night I retreated into my comfort zone of known skills and made dinner to compensate for my particular shortcomings that day.
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