Another "Life With Brent" memory

I've lived in Utah for the better part of 38 years and still am amazed at how quickly the fall changes to winter.  

I took these photos on October 29th and things still looked pretty much like this up until November 9th and THEN . . . 

Just. Like. That.  It's winter. . .

 Everything looks like it's been frosted with big dollops of whipped royal frosting (the stuff that you use to make gingerbread houses)

 I can't remember the last time that I got a ruler out to measure the accumulated snow.  This was measuring about sixteen inches.  Wow.

 I took these two photos this morning as the sun was coming up.  I just love that clear, smogless view of Antelope Island after a big rain or snowstorm.  It doesn't last long but I surely enjoy it for the few hours that it lasts.


Maybe it's because of the contrast of temperatures (65 degrees to 25 degrees) or the suddenness of the change but I'm FREEZING!  Can't seem to get warm.  Except when I'm having a hot flash.

Looking at the snowy scene out my office window, and blowing on my ice cold hands to try to thaw them out, I'm reminded of a winter story that's just begging to be told.  A "Life With Brent" winter story.  Most of you who follow my blog have heard this story... one of  many "Life With Brent" stories, but I don't believe that I have this one written down anywhere.  So without further ado . . .

The date was December 8, 1997.  I know this because I actually have dated photographic evidence of the story I'm about to tell.  The winter came early that year and it was really cold.  Our water heater chose to go into a dying process that spanned a couple of weeks leading up to December 8th, when we finally had a new water heater installed.  That couple of weeks was miserable, with the water heater sometimes working, sometimes not and then finally. just. not.  Brent was doing a lot of traveling with work, during that time, so he was never home long enough to completely take care of the problem and it seems like I recall that the water heater would just magically start working long enough for him to get a hot shower and discredit the stories that the rest of us were telling about freezing, cold showers!  Of course, he tried several "do it yourself" fixes on the water heater, between business trips.  We all let him know that his fixes weren't working and that we were tired of showering and washing our hands in cold water.  Steve (seventeen years old) was particularly vocal (shocker, I know)  about how tired he was of taking cold showers when he would get home from bone- crushing wrestling practices. Finally, the huddled masses prevailed and Brent made arrangements to have a new water heater installed on the aforementioned date.
So . . .  the water heater installer guy arrived (by himself) and proceeded to wrestle this beast of a water heater tank down our stairs and back to the water heater closet place in our basement.  It seemed like it took a really long time, but he finally came out of the basement looking exhausted but triumphant.  He proclaimed that it had been one of the tougher installations that he'd done . . . tough to get it down the stairs, tough to get it into position and hooked up but he was done and we would have hot water, again, shortly.  Joy!  No more walking over to the neighbor's house with my towel and shampoo.  No more listening to Steve whine about how the cold showers were stunting his growth. HOT WATER to clean the kitchen. A miracle.
However, several hours later, while I was in the kitchen fixing dinner, I realized that the water was STILL freezing cold.  WHAT?  The NEW water heater wasn't working?  It was just too cruel.  Brent came in the door from work, about then, and I proceeded to rant about the fact that there was STILL no hot water.  He said (calmly) "The pilot light probably just went out.  I'll just go down and relight it".  Okay, Brent, you do that.  And don't come upstairs until there's hot water coming out of this tap (I thought to myself).  In the meantime, Steve had wandered into the kitchen and was standing against the kitchen countertop chatting with me (a rare and always welcome event).

  I was standing at the stove, still chatting with Steve (with my back to the staircase) and attending to something cooking in a pot, when I heard Brent mutter the words that always brought dread to my heart ... "Well, that didn't go very well".  I turned around and there he stood, in all of his scorched glory.  Oh my. The photo that I've included really doesn't do justice to what I saw that day because when I took the photo (not sure why Brent cooperated)  I somehow managed to not include his comb-over hair sticking straight out from his head (you can get the idea from the hair standing out on the sides) or his scorched beloved Irish wool sweater (that he got in Ireland while on his mission).  His eyebrows had been blown off from about the midpoints to the sides, his eyelashes were melted to little stubs (tragic, because Brent has beautiful long eyelashes), his cheeks were a shiny red, and the little bit of thin hair that had been left on his forehead as his hairline receded . . . gone.  If you look closely, you can see little bits of white ash all around his hairline . . . the remnants of the few stalwart hairs that had survived until that point.  They never came back.

At this point, Steve and I were both just staring at this poor man in stunned silence. He explained that he had got down on his belly and lit a match to relight the pilot and was all of a sudden engulfed in flames.  Not funny . . . not really.  He could have been hurt really badly.  He was actually pretty lucky to come out of it with a slightly burned red face, a rearranged coiffure, melted eyelashes and blown-off eyebrows.  I found myself in the position (yet again) of working hard to stifle myself from laughing.  The poor man was obviously distressed and in pain (possibly in shock).  I said to him (with as much sympathy as I could muster while suppressing laughter), "Oh honey, that looks really painful (referring to his red cheeks).  Let's get some cold water on that".  Steve didn't miss a beat.  With a kind of deadpan (perhaps slightly annoyed) tone of voice he said, "Yeah . . . we've got plenty of that."   So much for sympathy and suppressed laughter.  I laughed so hard that I cried.  Tears. Streaming. Down. My. Face.  Brent wasn't amused.  Steve just stood there staring at Brent and didn't even laugh at his own joke.  Brent informed us both that he had to be in Reno, the next day, presenting to a group (leadership training or something like that) of about four hundred people. Looking like a total goober. I think he may have finally got a smile out of Steve with that thought!
The water heater installer guy was summoned back to our house, that very late winter afternoon, to relight the pilot light properly.  He went downstairs (clearly annoyed to have to come back) and came back up the stairs a couple of minutes later missing HIS eyelashes and eyebrows.  He had apparently spent the better part of his day installing a defective water heater.  He came back the next day, uninstalled the beast, hauled it  back up the stairs and then hauled a new one down.  Another difficult installation later, we finally had hot water.
Brent's eyelashes eventually grew back, although his eyebrows and his hairline were never the same (I don't know about the installer).  He was able to salvage his beloved sweater using some kind of lint cutting blade to scrape off the scorched fabric.  Steve was finally able to take a hot shower but I'm sure that he found something else to gripe about.  He was, after all, a seventeen year old boy.
Thanks, Brent, for being a good sport about my "Life With Brent" posts.  Generally speaking, after Brent has had a couple of days to work through the chagrin of a painful injury and/or expensive property damage he's  able to laugh at his adventures and misadventures!  One of the many things I love about him. 'Til next time.