{"id":5073,"date":"2024-08-06T02:53:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-06T02:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=5073"},"modified":"2026-10-02T01:31:58","modified_gmt":"2026-10-02T01:31:58","slug":"told-you-so","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/?p=5073","title":{"rendered":"TOLD YOU SO"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When the appraiser came to look over our house two weeks ago – with Melissa and I desperately hoping for a greenlight on our refinance proposal – he reported back to the bank one thing that HAD to be corrected before he could give his blessing.<\/p>\n\n\n

It concerned the water heater. It needed “a drain line on the overflow valve”.<\/p>\n\n\n

Melissa suggested I call my brother, owner of the family hardware store to see if it was something I could do myself.<\/p>\n\n\n

A drain line – connecting what to which drain?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

A plumbing project worthy of holding up the bank proceedings? Do it myself?<\/p>\n\n\n

I couldn’t imagine.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

Besides, the top of the water heater looks to be held together by hard water deposits. Even if this necessary drain line turned out to be a problem most people could DIY, I pictured myself spending hours on the project, buying a whole bunch of tools, and ultimately wrecking the water heater itself.<\/p>\n\n\n

So I didn’t call my brother, I called a plumber.<\/p>\n\n\n

Better to have a professional do the job right.<\/p>\n\n\n

Right?<\/p>\n\n\n

After canceling once last week, the plumber came this morning. He attached a brass fitting to the valve on the side of the tank and from it he dangled a couple of feet of blue plastic pipe, open-ended and pointing to floor.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

Like this:<\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

Ten minutes later, he wrote the invoice and said, “I won’t charge you for the parts, since it was such a simple thing.”<\/p>\n\n\n

Nice! Thank goodness, because I felt foolish.<\/p>\n\n\n

Him: “… no parts – just the minimum visit fee and labor: $191.25.”<\/p>\n\n\n

Me: #@&%!!!<\/p>\n\n\n

To her great credit, Melissa has – so far – resisted the urge to say “I told you so”.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the appraiser came to look over our house two weeks ago – with Melissa and I desperately hoping for a greenlight on our refinance proposal – he reported back to the bank one thing that HAD to be corrected before he could give his blessing. It concerned the water heater. It needed “a drain […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5074,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5075,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5073\/revisions\/5075"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5074"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}