Before I post Sherm and Larz’s story scene, I want to share a little bit of New Year cheer with you. Honey and I got a notice from the water department yesterday morning that our meter was moving too fast so we should check for leaks. Yay! I could detail to you the whole long and very depressing story in narration, but dialogue is so much more fun. So let me share bits of conversations with you so you get an overall feel for the dilemmas that faced us. First with the leak and then with…well, you’ll see.

This is Honey after he reads the doorknob hanger notice from the city. “That’s it? No, you’re losing X amount of gallons per hour or anything? Without knowing the volume it would be damn near impossible to determine the source of the leak.”

I must have looked like I cared about what he was saying because he explained.

“If the needle is moving a little that could be a leaking toilet gasket or an outdoor spigot needs a washer or something. Now, if it’s moving fast it’s a break in the line outside or in the slab.” He turned the yellow card over again. “The guy didn’t say anything about amounts?”

“Nope.”

“A**holes! Let me call them, but before I do I’m going to test something. I’ll be shutting off the water for a few minutes.”

He heads outside and comes back in five minutes later. He’s scowling. “The break is between the meter and the house. Since it’s on our property it’s our responsibility so I’ll be out front digging.”

“You know where the leak is?”

“I think so.”

Five minutes later I’m in working in my office and Honey calls, “Hey, can you come and look at this for me?”

I throw down my pen because this always happens when he does stuff around our house. I always get called in. But then I come around the corner and see him leaning into the laundry room from the garage, and I stop dead.

“Do you think it needs stiches? #$#@!!! light! I banged into it when I stood. I have to fix it by the way, but it needed to be fixed before I really broke it so no loss there.”

Yeah, there was no loss anywhere, but from the blood pouring out of his forehead. Seriously, if I had hit myself that hard I’d be crying and rocking in a corner. He had a lump the size of a golf ball and the split was an inch and half long.

“Can you snap it up? I got to get this done, if I’m going to get back to the jobsite. Stiches? Or can I tape it together with some duct tape?”

Did I mention that duct tape is his go-to medical supply when he slices himself? He tapes up fingers, biceps and even his ribs. Ribs. He did that once only the second I found out about it I took him to the hospital to get X-rayed. Yeah, he cracked two of them when he fell off a ladder so he needed them wrapped with something other than duct tape. *shakes head* The doctors thought it was ingenious, by the way, but back to the gushing blood and open wound on his forehead. I didn’t let him tape it – I taped it. Not with duct tape, but with proper butterfly wing strips after I disinfected area. Which was all good until he discovered that the leak he’d found (a very, very, small one) wasn’t the leak that was causing the problem. It was time to call in the leak experts – only they couldn’t come until today so we called a semi-expert. Our sprinkler guy who took one look at the meter and said, “OMFG!!!! You’re losing about a gallon a minute.”

How could this be though? Our lawn, driveway, and house wasn’t floating away. Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you it was raining the proverbial felines and canines yesterday too, so yippee ki ya you know what! In the end we went old school and turned off the water last night at the source to wait for the experts. Come morning, Honey was chomping at the bit to find the problem and within five minutes after a good night’s sleep he found it. All fixed. So there we were sitting having our coffee later than usual this morning when I said to him, “I can’t believe you don’t care about getting cut in the face.” I was sitting there imagining what it would have been like if that had been my forehead, you know?

He shrugs. “It’s not so bad. It will give me character.”

Yeah, like he needed more of that. “It’s going to leave a scar.”

“So what. Chicks dig scars.”

I almost choked on my coffee, but then he proceeds to tell me about this one time when he got hit in the eye with a toboggan. It sliced his cheek open and gave him a wicked black eye. According to him, all the girls at school were fawning all over him. Especially after he told them he’d been in a fight the night before and that’s how he got the shiner.

*Insert me steaming here* Why? Because I was one of those girls he fed that load of hogwash to. Not at school because we didn’t go to school together, but after school when we were together. Hm. *Drums fingers on table and thinks back* Why didn’t he ever mention all those fawning girls to me…me who was his girlfriend at the time?

Meh, that was so many years ago that I decided to leave it be. Yeah, right after I told him the one reason I fell in love with him in the first place was because of that fight when I thought he was a bad ass, kicking ass like that. Now that I knew he made it up and it was a stupid toboggan that gave him a black eye? Well, that changed everything didn’t it?

*Looks right at you* It certainly changed his attitude. Heh. He’s been sweating bullets ever since. Me? Not so much. I think I’ll wait until New Year’s to tell him I was only joking…Poor guy. But can you imagine the nerve? Lol!

Okay, have fun tonight. Tomorrow I’m going to post the story scene and the added item for the giveaway.

I hope all you guys have a happy and safe New Year’s!!!! See ya in 2015!!!!

Riley