2026: Saturday September 12: Science

Science is weird, or, as my plumber put it, "different metals don't like to touch." I googled his exact phrase and after I scrolled past a lot of the crap that passes for results these days, I found a metal fabricator's site that explained galvanic corrosion, which is what has been happening quietly in the wall behind my bathroom sink for the past 50 years or so as a steel drain pipe nestled snuggly next to a copper supply pipe until making their antagonistic relationship known to us via the water pouring down through our kitchen light fixtures that I showed you last week. 

The plumber was very happy to pause so I could take photos to send to the insurance company. I think he liked that I was interested. 

Insurance won't pay for the plumbing work, but we are expecting they'll pay to fix most of the holes the plumber (Derek) had to make to find and fix the issue. There's all this smashed tile behind the vanity, and a ragged gaping maw in the kitchen ceiling down below, where Derek began his search for the offending pipe. He felt better about smashing tile when I said I thought the previous owners had kept a box of the tile and he followed me out to the garage to make sure, and yes, twenty three years after we moved in and I never threw it out, so we have a couple of dozen replacements that will do nicely. (And also a box of the kitchen floor tiles and the downstairs bathroom tiles. Never tidy the garage, people, it's a treasure trove in there). 

Ella did politely ask if that 1990s decor was what we still wanted to live with, and sure, if this was our forever house, this would be the time to remodel the entire bathroom into something way cooler. But I don't have it in me right now to pick out a new color scheme and decide how wide of a bathtub we'd like and monitor the quality of the work. Some people love that stuff, but I just want it all put back tidy and functional so we can move on with our lives. 

God knows what it must be like to have a real disaster hit your house. The bureaucracy alone would do me in. 

Now I'm off to buy a new clothes dryer because the old one has stopped working since it is gas-powered, we're just going to replace it with electric rather than get it fixed.