A Polite Inanimate Object

Every year I know that at least one inanimate object in my house is going to up and die, usually right before a yom tov. Many years there has been more than one "death" in a year.

This year the inanimate object slated to leave my home--the hot water heater-- turned out to be a very polite one. Instead of dying in the week before Pesach, it died this past Sunday morning. In doing so during the early a.m. hours, it made its exit when my husband was home and when a plumber was reachable and available to come to the house. Of course, it destroyed my chores for Sunday, which included a whole lot of uses of hot water. On the other hand, it gave me an unexpected "free" day, and for that I can't complain.

I'm hoping that this will be the end of the "deaths" slated for this yom tov. Perhaps with all the mild weather we've had this winter, only one object will have gotten mortally ill. Yes, I can only hope.

Note: Only a few decades ago this story would have ended differently. A plumber on Sunday? Maybe if you lived in a frum area that had a frum plumber, and he was willing to come to you. But even then, that was more for small repairs than for major replacements. The plumbing supply stores that would have provided the water heater weren't open on Sunday. Hey, back then the large malls weren't open on Sunday either. Almost no stores were open on Sunday, with the exception of a few kosher groceries and/or bakeries. We would have been hotwaterless for at least a couple of days. Fast forward to now and the whole replacement took one examination visit and then the installation visit, all done within 5 hours of our discovering the broken heater. Yes, sometimes I really do love progress.