I’m normally a pretty smart person, really…
I’m normally a pretty smart person. Really, I am. I just don’t have a whole lot of common sense sometimes. I have a hot tub in my back yard that I haven’t hooked up yet. During the winter here, there was an awful lot of rain, and the tub was filling up. I felt I needed to empty it, but I couldn’t find a drain valve.
Charlie mentions that I could just siphon out the water. Wow. I think. Easy, low-tech solution. When he leaves, I look around for a hose to siphon out the water. The only thing I find is the hose on the ShopVac. AND that is huge. Three inches in diameter at least. I put one end in the rain-filled tub and I huff and suck on the other end–to get the water flowing.
And it does. And the water gushes out of the 3-inch diameter hose. And the tub empties really fast. I was feeling pretty pleased that I’d gotten it going. I wasn’t necessarily going to tell anyone about it. I don’t know if that’s something I want people to know about me: I can siphon rain water through a ShopVac hose 3-inches in diameter. But, now I’m blogging about it. So I guess it’s out there.
Except, after a certain bit, the water stops flowing. I realize I need the exit end to be lower than the entry end, and the ShopVac hose is just too short. I look around for another hose. I find bit of irrigation tubing buried in the back of the garden shed. Great I think. It’s the right length and is a bit more manageable in diameter.
I return to the hot tub and stick the end into the bottom. I huff and suck on the other end to get the water going again. EXCEPT. EXCEPT. This time, the hose has been in the bottom of the garden shed for far too long. I suck something other than water through the hose. It’s either a spider or a spider’s web. I don’t know.
I vomit.
And a neon three-dimensional L appears over my head again.
But, damn! It makes for a great story!
For future reference, you can fill the hose with water by immersing it into the tub, then hold one end underwater, stick a thumb over the other end as you take it out and get it positioned lower than the submerged end, take away your thumb, and voila! You’ll have the water flowing without ever having to suck up any spiders. It’s probably also a good way to find out if there are any stoppages (made by spiders or otherwise) in the hose.
But it won’t be nearly as funny.
That is funny as hell!! Only you can do something like that.
I had tropical fish as a kid so I was going to tell you about the submersing the hose trick, but Fawn beat me to it.
MH13
I like your stories, it is really funny and its reminds me lots of fun …!!!! lol
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[...] And now I know where I get my doing-things-without-thinking trait from (dare I mention my siphoning spiders incident or hand-sanitizer [...]