A Lesson

Today I learned a lesson.  Actually, I didn't learn anything I didn't already know; but I sure did create a mess which could have been avoided.  "Could"?  No, "should" would be more appropriate.  But it does illustrate how important it is for those of us, really anyone, who have reached an age, to think once, reason out the results, think again before performing.

I wasn't thinking.

I have a walk-in bathtub.  Yup, you can see it coming right now, can't you.  It has a door on the side which opens for entering and exiting.  One opens the door, walks into the tub area, thus the name "walk-in tub," sits and then turns on the water.  That's what I did, but I left out one little, meaningless step.

I have a 60 gallon water tank and my tub takes 80 gallons so I have to run the water at a slower rate than  I would like.  It takes about 15 or 20 minutes to fill my tub.  On this day, though, after about 10 minutes, I noticed the tub wasn't filling.  The door, you may know, is on the side of the tub but in front of the seat.  I have no idea where my mind was.  Certainly not there.

So I looked around and you simply could never guess what I discovered.  Well, you easily could and probably knew it a couple paragraphs back.  I discovered the door not only had not been locked and sealed, it also hadn't even been shut.  Oh my God, what a mess out there in the bathroom!  There easily was a 1/4 inch of water everywhere.  It had gone under a closet door into the closet where my wife stores the extra boxes of facial tissues and rolls of paper towels on the floor. 

They all were 'damp'.

My wife came in to see what was taking so long and said nothing.  She didn't have to as I could hear her head screaming some very choice phrases at me.  It took a lot longer to clean up the room than it did to wet it down but my lesson had been etched into my head forever. 

I'll rationalize that my screw up, no, that the tub didn't hold the water by pleading my age.  When one gets here, there are all sorts of aging conditions that I could use.  I won't acknowledge that plain stupidity or carelessness could be included in this incident. 

But let this be a lesson for those of you who might have or be thinking of getting a walk-in bathtub to be sure the door is shut and sealed before you turn on the water.

Dave