Come on In! (The Water's Fine)

Speaking of home dangers as I was, if you do come here for a visit I can also send you away with skin like a pepperoni pizza.

Our hot water heater has scrofula - I think. Anyway that's the only disease-name I can think of that conjures up the right degree of hideousness.

The thing produces such large amounts of rusty silt it’s infecting the houseguests.

Not two weeks back, a young male guest tried to have a bath here and erupted in an instant rash.

“Help!" he squealed in alarm, showing me his arm. “My skin is my main asset!” he mourned. “Girls don’t date me, they date my skin." Poor guy. And I understand it’s only in the last couple of days that the little bubbles have started to shrink.

I feel terrible, of course. I guess I must be so used to the tea-colored water I didn’t even think to warn him.

"For heaven’s sake!" friends tell us, “call the plumber and get a new hot water heater !" but “Not yet” says my man.

Nope, David always wants to try ONE MORE THING, and in this case that one more thing is draining the tank yet again to see if doing so doesn't fix it this time.

Sigh.

We had our little grandsons here for a couple of days at the end of last month - it was when their baby sister was being born - and I just knew the only way I could get them in the tub at day’s end would be to ‘treat' the rust-colored 'tea’ coming out of our faucets. So, on the sly I dosed the bath water with blue food coloring.

They came in while I was doing it and – luckily – were entranced.

They leaned their little tummies over the tub’s edge and took over for me, squeezing out more and more blue from the little vials, then some nice bright green, then even a dash of purple just to see what would happen.

It’s true I sent them home to their parents inked to the elbows but hey, they were clean. I even washed their hair.

I’m thinkin’ now that maybe the next time they come for a sleepover we’ll throw in whole vials of food coloring, add a gallon of vinegar, jump on in and become our own Easter eggs. Why not, right? What's skin for if not for decorating?

This isn't my own particular grandchild but you get the idea. I call this picture FUN WITH GRANDMA. :-)