The first night here my Mom wanted to take a shower -- first shower in the new house
I told her to knock herself out.
so she went in and ran the water -- and it ran and ran and ran
and it never got above luke warm
which where we live on a warm day is just how it comes out of the ground
there's no cold water from the tap until Novemberish
so Dad and I went to the hot water heater and the arrow was all the way over to the left
I couldn't see the numbers very well
but I moved it to the middle -- and it warmed up a bit for the next day
and every day
I moved the dial a bit more to the right
and
it just didn't get any better
no better at all
I finally contacted the landlords who asked me to take a photo of the dial
yeah
I pushed aside the insulation
and son of a bitch
I was making the water colder every day
every day
I have no idea why Mom wasn't burned by the super hot water
perhaps it was turned too far?
who knows
not the point of this story
the point is that I got stuck on an idea
that higher must logically be to the right
that the water was getting warmer as I did -- even though it was getting colder
and I wonder how often we do this
convince ourselves of something
just because it fits our picture of the way things work.
hmmmm
I think we do it a lot (I do anyways). Though I never thought of it quite so clearly.
ReplyDeleteHa! Reminds me of an experiment I used to do on people (legit! I was an academic psychologist!). Very interesting to see what people do when they hit that wall (ie suddenly realise their picture is completely wrong).
ReplyDeletePL
I once lived in an apartment where the TUB faucet was backwards.... no matter how hard I tried I always turned to the right for Hot Water.... My brain just could not conceptual understand it the other way.
ReplyDeleteRight Tighty
Lefty Loosey
Sounds like your Hot Water Heater installer was having a banner day.
~faithful
Funny how that works..when mouse first moved into this house, the hot water was almost nonexistent! Seriously thought the water heater was broken. Called someone out to fix it. Dude came out, took one look and started to laugh. Asked mouse how long she lived here, by that time a couple months had passed. He laughed again...he said it was switched to vacation mode...huh? Mouse explained that she's not on vacation, she planned on living here year around.
ReplyDeleteMore laughter.
He set it and said that it should be fine in a couple hours...
Fast forward about 4 years, and mouse being really blonde told the story to her friend...friend's husband within earshot over heard the story and started laughing hysterically.
It took all that time for mouse to understand there's a vacation setting on the water heater.
Yep, beyond blonde. That's mouse!!
Hugs,
mouse
So, maybe you were the person who made it so the toilet in the place I used to work was fed by the hot water?
ReplyDeleteOr this is a more common syndrome than we know...
(*forsess*)
@lil - whew - so I'm not nuts? -- what a relief
ReplyDelete@PL -- that explains a lot
@Faithful -- I would love to blame it on installation -- but it was all just me
@mouse -- but adorable
@Jz - so like a facial (an asscial?)
I love this story. What a great metaphor. I can't even imagine how often I probably do this. Thanks
ReplyDeleteaisha.
funny how the brain reasons things out
ReplyDeletesfp