The Final Battle of the Water War, and the Demise of My Nemesis (aka Evil Old Water Boiler)

Three random men (none of them were Páli or Szabolcs, the handymen from my school) showed up at my flat yesterday afternoon to install My Ally, The New Water Boiler. This process involved them mumbling and joking a lot in Hungarian as I hovered in the bathroom doorway. There was also use of power tools, including a metal-shavings-and-spark-throwing circular saw, with no sort of goggles or gloves. Wow, does Hungary do workers’ comp? I’ve noticed construction and highway workers here don’t wear helmets either.

Right, tangent. So... I have hot water! It’s beautiful. I had resisted the temptation to tear open the box and inspect it as it waited in my bathroom, but let me tell you now that it’s sleek and shiny, clean white with smooth gray knobs. After the men left, I cleaned up the mud and soot deposited by boots and power tools. My bathroom was sparkling and warm. So I turned off the light and basked in the warm glow of the crisp blue flame reflected on the pure white surface, and a feeling of warmth, love, and peace with the earth came over me to such an extent that I pressed my cheek against New Water Boiler while running my fingertips gently over its caressable smoothness.

Wait, no, I didn’t. Maybe my brain really has been frozen. I counted up the days, and for the 5 months I’ve lived here, I’ve been CWO (Cold Water Only) for about two of them. Ouch. Anyway, if I never have to write about the the hot water in my flat again, other than to occasionally mention that it’s working perfectly, and how blessed and grateful I am to have it, I would be so happy. Today, it seems like a viable possibility.

The absolute endnote to this story is that when Páli and Szabolcs showed up this morning to lug away the old machine and inspect the new one, I had just gotten up, was dressed in awful old clothes, and my vacuum was parked in the middle of my hall. “Oh, you’re in the middle of cleaning?” they said, nodding approvingly. So I hope they carried that story back to the school - I know they think I live in filth. Which may be true... but still.

Sorry I’m weird today. I’m picking it up from The Kids. Plans for tonight include Soproni Time, followed by going to see some English movie which looks incredibly boring to me, but Chad is fired up about it - and he has reasonably good taste in movies, so we’ll see.