Wolverines are dangerous creatures, after all.

As the token male of the family, It would appear that I am responsible for a number of key tasks around the house. One might say too many tasks. I'm sure that my fellow dads have the same issue in their own household. Here, I'm the grill master. The bug squasher. The closet purger. The handyman. The only one who will go within ten feet of a drain so clogged by toothpaste and hair gunk that it actually laughs at you if you dare threaten it with a dose of Draino and a drain snake.

We've gotten into a pattern around this house. It sounds something like this. Note that "her" pretty much refers to any member of the family that isn't me:

Her: Dad! Spider!
Me: Yeah? So?
Her: Kill it!
Me: You kill it!
Her: Uh uh. That's your job. I'm not going near no scary spider nuh uh.
(dad begrudgingly gets up from couch, squishes spider, and returns to couch)
Her: Did you wash your hands?
Me: Why would I do that? I used a tissue to squish it.
Her: You HAVE to wash your hands! Please dad, for god's sake, you're touching the couch after squishing an ooky spider!
Me: You don't seem to have a problem lying right where Daisy spent the last hour licking her own crotch.
Her: DAD!!!!!!
Me: Sigh...fine....if it will make you go away....

Basically, any time I hear someone in the house yell something that starts with "Dad!", I immediately cringe, realizing it means more work for me.

I started giving this a little thought and, frankly, I'm doing my children a great disservice by taking care of many of the tasks around the house that they could should be doing themselves. Tasks that they will need to know how to do in their later years if only to avoid blowing up the house or getting attacked by hungry wolverines. I mean, when will my kids learn to change their own batteries, for goodness sake?

So, I've decided it's time for a little survival boot camp.

After a modicum of consideration and perhaps a Sam Adams or two, I've come up with a list of practical, everyday tasks that Things #1 and #2 need to learn if they are ever to avoid that wolverine attack. Here's what I've come up with so far. Please feel free to suggest others.

• How to run the lawn mower without losing a toe
• How to use the leaf blower AND get the leaves to successfully form a pile
• How to run the dishwasher. Wait - how to LOAD and run the dishwasher. There's an art to it properly, so you don't end up with bowls full of water and that one fork with the rice stuck in it, after all.
• How to push that little red button on the GFCI outlet after attempting to run the hair dryer at the same time as the hair straightener and tripping the breaker.
• How to stop the toilet from overflowing
• How to use the plunger on a clogged toilet
• How to clean the plunger after use
• How to use a shovel
• How to sweep the floor and not make it look worse than when you started
• How to get dad another Sam Adams. Wait - how to get a Sam Adams AND pop the top
• How to light the gas stove without blowing up the house.
• How to turn off the gas stove so as not to blow up the house
• How to call the fire department after you've blown up the house
• How to use the vacuum cleaner
• How to unclog the hair from the vacuum cleaner
• How to unclog the hair from the drain
• How to untangle the hair from the ceiling fan (don't ask...it's a thing)
• How to clean that backside of the hairdryer, where all the dust collects
• Yeah, there's issues with hair around this place.
• How hanging a 5 lb. picture on a wall should involve a nail, not an entire roll of scotch tape.
• How to hammer a nail
• How to change a light bulb
• How to close the freaking door behind you, what do you live in a barn?
• How to put the vegetable drawer back on it's track in the fridge after you've pulled it out too far, rather than just jamming it in there with the refrigerator door half closed.
• How to read an error message on the computer screen and remember what it said just before the computer ignited, rather than just telling me, "dad, something's wrong with the computer".
• How to squish your own damned spider.

It seems I have a lot of work ahead of me. I'd better get another beer first.

Avoiding frozen pipes without setting fire to the house

Okay, I had three different Facebook friends mention they had frozen bathroom pipes this weekend. I think it's high time I share my discovery with the world regarding a great way to avoid frozen pipes forever.

When we renovated the house we made a really dumb decision and located the new master bathroom sink not only on an outside wall, but in sort of a "bumpout" that looks like this:



I know, I know...kind of looks like the side of an RV, right? Well, not the brightest idea, in retrospect. The pipes froze twice in the first winter. The solution we came up with was to install a Watts Water Circulating Pump on the hot water tank.



The concept is simple. On the "hot water out" pipe atop your water heater, you install the pump. under the sink with the problem pipes, you install a special mixing valve (that tubular thing in the foreground) that connects the hot and cold water pipes together before the water runs to the faucet. The gadget on the hot water tank has a 24-hour timer on it, on which you can set intervals of 15 minutes each for it to run at various times throughout the day. When it kicks on, it sends hot water up the hot water pipe, to the mixing valve under the sink, and back down the cold water pipe to the water tank, thus filling your entire system with hot (or at least warmer) water. Voila, no more frozen pipes. During the coldest time of year (um..now!) I have it run once every two hours.

Installation is simple, and if you're lucky no soldering is necessary. By "lucky" I mean that if the hot water pipe coming out of the top of your hot water tank is flexible, then all you have to do (after properly turning off and emptying the tank) is unscrew the hose, put this gadget on in between it and the tank, and reconnect. If the pipes are straight copper, you'll need to cut the pipe. I helped a friend install one in his house and, to avoid soldering, we used a pipe fitting called a "sharkbite" fitting. Ask the guy at Home Depot about it.

Another advantage to this thing is you no longer have to wait ten minutes for warm water to reach the shower. The only disadvantage (other than the relatively minor electrical usage) is that you, ironically, must wait a bit for COLD water to come out of the tap. But really, which is worse, rinsing your teeth in warm water or crawling under the sink and setting fire to your house with a blow torch?