Moving: The Jetted Tub vs. Me
12/19/09 15:11
December 19, 2009
Until I bought this house I was an innocent paraplegic in the world of whirlpool or jetted tubs...
So it was time this evening to try out the jets in the tub! During my first bath in this lovely new place I was too tired to try them out, after discovering that I can’t reach the faucet unless I sit on my bath stool inside the tub, that the faucet knob falls off and is the very devil to reinstall. Another thing to have fixed when my former house sells. The thing looks new and fantastic, who would have guessed that the inside was corroded? Certainly not the dude who did the home inspection prior to my plunking down a check for the house. Same character who failed to observe or report that the hot water faucet in the laundry room is also corroded and hence unusable.
Carefully sliding onto my bath stool I set the water at a nice warm temperature, slid back into the wheelchair, got the stool out of the tub, crossed the room to turn on the jets, back onto the stool, gradually into the tub... About that moment the jets -- still slightly above the waterline -- began to first trickle, then to blast, water -- up, onward, outward! Water shot across my back with sufficient force to hit the opposite side of the room via the one section of tub surround without a glass wall, where one gets in and out. The jets on the side facing the tall glass wall streamed vigorously, smacking three feet up and backwashing to create a secondary downpour in the vicinity of my wheelchair. The thick towel on my stool and my lovely flannel nighty on the wheelchair began dripping energetically. The floor took on the look of a pond on a rainy day.
Turning off the water did no good, though by now the jets were well below the waterline. Not knowing just then how to adjust the angle of the nozzles I opted for getting out of the tub and turning them off. With less grace than a beached whale I attempted repeatedly to drag my mainly paralyzed self up and over the high, ridged rim of the tub, hampered by streaming hair plastered across my face. Heave ho! Heave ho, me hearty! Pains in the leg, pains in the butt as I finally succeeded in topping the rim and turning face up on the sopping towel on the stool. Plopping my rear into the pool of standing water on the wheelchair seat, with a great sigh of relief I was able to turn off the jets. Those things would do a firehouse company proud. About then I noticed my leg going black and blue. A little something to remember the Importance of Better Planning by. Several sodden big towels of mopping later, I was able -- with loud promises NEVER to turn on the jets again -- to take a quiet bath.
The next day when I washed all those towels I made the discovery that the dryer doesn’t have heat -- the plumber didn’t turn the gas on because he was not pleased that the machine would have to vent into the room till I have funds to purchase an electric dryer. The vent for the dryer is rendered useless because it is across the room from the gas hookup. Said plumber’s major sin lies in failing to notify me of his decision to set the thing up but not take the final step after workers here had informed me that it would be okay to let it vent into the room for a short while... A few months ago via the Hunger Site I bought a couple of pink dryer "balls" which one is supposed to throw into the machine in lieu of a sheet of softener. This act is supposedly kind to the environment. I didn't ever use them since on the box the instructions said one must not use heat in the dryer lest the bumpy pink balls melt. Hmmm, so exactly of what use are those things, no matter how good they may be for the environment? If it takes a load of laundry about 24 hours of spinning, heatless, to get rid of much of the wetness, which would be kinder to the earth? A sheet of Bounce with heat for 45 minutes or 24 hours of pink balls bumping around?
Oh, the adventures of moving!
