January 22, 2013

  • The Beast Learns A Lesson...

    TALES FROM THE BRAT FARM

    The Beast went to his church today to work on the heat.  It's been acting up plus someone said they smelled gas every once in a while.  The Beast found out it hasn't been serviced since it was installed seven years ago.  He had taken a look at it last week and thought this one part was installed backwards.  If it was, he knew the coil on it would be incredibly dirty.  Once he had determined that the part had indeed been installed wrong (which was why it kept shutting down the heat too early), he went equipped to reinstall the part correctly.  He was also going to clean the coil so he had his coil cleaner with him.

    He was gone about two hours.  When he walked in the house, he had his shirt-jacket over his head and covering his face.  I was a bit startled and said, *What's wrong?*  He grabs the jacket and pulls it open and I start to laugh.  His face was covered in soot.  As I looked, even his hands were!  He didn't even have to say it.  He told me that after he had correctly installed and brazed the part on one of the burners, he had adjusted the gas and then was going to clean the coil.  He said he laid on his back to get the sprayer into the area where the coil was located.  As soon as he started to spray it, soot went flying everywhere.  He said he thought he would choke on it and couldn't believe the cloud of soot over the unit.  He said the part that had been installed backward caused all that soot.  He hadn't even considered how much soot it would have left behind after seven years. 

    I have to tell you....he was just BLACK with soot.  His hair, his face, his ears, his neck and both hands.  When he took off the long sleeve shirt he was wearing, the soot had even fallen beyond the cuff and down his forearms.  He jumped in the shower and it looked like he had been playing in mud.  I reminded him to clean out his nose because he had soot in it, too.  I threw his clothes and the shirt jacket into the washer with nothing else because I didn't want to share the soot with anything else.  I was shocked at how much his shirt jacket had all over it.  That must have been a really huge soot cloud he caused. 

    I've told you about the fish craze the Beast has been going through lately.  Well, the adorable round tank that has changing lights and a central tube that bubbles all the time seems to be cursed or something.  We've had four fish die in it and we really had no idea why.  The Beast did some research and (as I have been telling him) he should have had cleaner fish in it.  The filter he has in it isn't big enough to keep the tank clean and we discovered the rocks on the bottom (the small colored kind) were slimy and had lots of mold on it. 

    So the Beast took the single fish we had left and put it in the 50 gal tank with the goldfish.  I adore that goldfish.  It has bubble eyes and will follow you if you walk back and forth in front of the tank.  It also goes nuts when the Beast gets the fish food that he has next to the tank.  The minute the Beast picks it up, Goldie knows he's going to get food.  He starts zipping around the tank and up to the surface, just waiting for the Beast to drop in the food.  He also goes nuts when the Beast drops in the dried tiny shrimp that he treats him and the companion fish (I forget what it is) to every once in a while.  The little fish that the Beast added to the big tank was a tetra, I think it's called.  I know the males will eat any babies born if you don't separate the female before she gives birth.

    The Beast decided to throw away the little colored rocks and just leave the fake plants in the round tank.  If he puts any rock in, it'll be the bigger rocks.  So he goes to get some more fish for the tank after it's been cleaned up and gets fresh water in it.  He's got special pills that adjust the PH in it and another pill that gets rid of the chlorine.  What he comes home with is two catfish.  That made me laugh.  I told him that the catfish should be good for anything that lands on the bottom of the tank, too, so it might not be such a bad choice.  I'm still trying to get him to ask his buddy that raises fish what cleaner fish we can put in the bowl with our beta fish.  It needs something since it's in a regular fish bowl with no filter.  I don't know why he won't ask.  Must be a *man thing* and he doesn't want his buddy to think he's totally ignorant on the subject.  That's so dumb to my way of thinking.  No one can know EVERYTHING.  Sheesh!

    We ended up having Chewlee here for about two hours while the Princess and Johnnycakes went out to dinner with a couple friends.  Chewlee got the Beast to let her play her games on Nickjr.com.  and that's where she was when the Princess got here.  She was so funny.  The Beast was having a tough time finding the screen that Chewlee insisted on and she was not shy about telling him that.  She finally came into my room and said, *Grandma, Papa needs you.  He can't find my games.  You have to come and help him.  It's important!*  I did go to see what the problem was and realized that NickJr had changed their opening screen.  I DID finally find the right screen and hope I remember how I did it for next time.   Chewlee kept saying that MY computer was the only good one.  I think the Beast was ready to strangle her at one point.

    It's going down to 22 degrees tonight and the Beast wasn't happy about that at all.  But he turned on the electric blanket and made sure the comforter was on the bed.  He'll be fine, no matter what the temperature is.

    Love you all.  Have a great week.