The Man of the Hour during the craziest Christmas memory ever.
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“Help!”
You really don’t want to hear that shouted from the bathroom while you’re celebrating Christmas with your family. But that’s exactly what happened this week. And it made for what might be the most memorable Evansville Christmas in recent memory.* This Christmas memory will certainly be recorded in the annals of Todd Family history and is destined to be repeated over and over again at Todd Family gatherings for years…
nay…
DECADES.to.come.
Christmas at Dad’s
Our family and Kevin’s family gathered at Dad’s house for a few days after Christmas. Due to COVID and a few scheduling issues, this was our first Christmas gathering since mom passed away in early 2020. It was great to be able to spend time together under one roof.
Tuesday after Christmas, we gathered around the Christmas tree and spent the morning laughing and celebrating and exchanging gifts (with the occasional “Un-der-wear!” chant for old times’ sake). It was great. My heart was full. I think it’s safe to say all of our hearts were full. It was so good to be together. Sure, there were pockets of grief and sadness. But there was also joy. And that’s OK. Because joy and sorrow can share the same space.
And after we exchanged gifts, we got ready for the next family tradition: a big ol’ breakfast with sausage and biscuits and eggs and hash browns and all kinds of breakfasty goodness. Dad has been orchestrating this family breakfast for years. It’s something our kids look forward to every Christmas. It’s a favorite Christmas memory. In fact, they love this tradition so much that they ask if we can have a “Grandpa Breakfast” almost every time we visit Evansville. And most of the time, that’s in the cards.
Everyone was off doing different things in preparation for the Feast. Some were putting away their gifts. Others were getting dressed. Me? I was in the kitchen grabbing a drink of water.
Not far away from the kitchen is a half bathroom. I heard some commotion coming from its closed door. I didn’t really think much of it at first, but then I heard another noise.
“Help!”
As I said before, that’s never a good thing to hear come from a bathroom. I didn’t know who was in there, but I thought it sounded like Aiden. I run-walked over to the bathroom door and opened it, expecting to see Aiden trying to figure out how to stop an overflowing toilet.
Boy, was I wrong.
I opened the door to find my brother standing in the middle of the room with water shooting out of the faucet.
Seriously. It was a geyser. Water was spraying everywhere.
Eve.ry.where.
Something in the hot water handle broke. The hot water handle fell off. And the bathroom that we always treated as a “spare” bathroom was suddenly housing an indoor waterfall that rivaled Niagara Falls.
Trying to follow Dad’s life-long example of staying calm in the midst of chaos, I jumped into action, and put my hands on top of the broken handle. I don’t know why, exactly, I thought that was a good long-term idea. I guess I thought I was some kind of modern-day Hero of Haarlem and I’d be able to solve everything by simply covering the leak with my thumb hand.^
That didn’t work.
It just sprayed water all over me. And the hot water would’ve eventually hurt my hands. So I sprinted into the kitchen to grab two hand towels – the only towels I could find in such a hurry – and made my way back to the bathroom. I stuffed them onto the leak. It didn’t stop the water from coming out, but it did stop the indoor waterfall by redirecting the stream of water into the sink.
Kevin reached down under the sink and tried to turn off the water shutoff valve. No luck. It was stuck. As he kept at the valve, I asked Aiden and Aly to run out to Dad’s garage in the backyard and grab some pliers.
The garage door was locked. None of us had the key. Or remembered the entry code.
We had to move quickly
Christy and I ran to the basement to try to find the main water shutoff valve. While I did happen to find some pliers in the utility room, we couldn’t find the shutoff valve.
I grabbed the pliers as we went back upstairs to the half bathroom. Others had brought in some towels and blankets to start sopping up the water that had filled the bathroom. Seriously. It was like a miniature pond in there. It was bad enough, I thought we might need a wet/dry vac. Of course, I couldn’t go look for a wet/dry vac yet because I couldn’t access Dad’s garage yet.
Now, this whole thing happened within the span of five…maybe ten minutes. Maybe. It was quick. It all happened so quickly that Dad hadn’t even heard about what was happening yet. He was upstairs and really couldn’t hear much of the commotion. Of course, when he arrived on the scene, he showed me where the main shutoff valve was. So now I know how to turn the water off if another faucet randomly explodes in his house.
Once Dad got the water shut off, he and Kevin could focus on turning off the faucet. Because it was no longer raining hot water in the bathroom, they were able to make quick work of the super-tight shutoff valve under the sink.
The Man of the Hour during this Christmas memory
A plumber came an hour or so later. He was able to assess the situation, run and get a replacement faucet, and install said replacement faucet in relatively short time.
He was a hero. But he wasn’t the Man of the Hour.
It was this guy right here:
Three cheers for Kevin, the Man of the Hour, who did not waver, falter, or think twice. He stuck with his mission, no matter how hot the water was, or how wet his clothes got, or how high the tides rose.
Endnotes
*I’d say it was the most memorable Todd family Christmas in recent memory, but our two most recent Christmases in Gatlinburg, TN, and Daytona Beach, FL, were pretty remarkable. And now that I mention the Florida Christmas trip, I realize I never wrote about that here. So I’m adding that to the list of upcoming posts, just for y’all.
^You know…the Hero of Haarlem. The story goes that a Dutch boy who saved his village from disaster by sticking his thumb in a leaky dam. Or something like that.
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Indeed…. Kevin was THE HERO!