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Fit for a queen

Around here, we get our excitement where we can.

I am therefore excited to report that it rained! And the new drainage pipe did its thing! I actually went out into the deluge to watch water drip out the end of the pipe. Moreover, since the water was being carried away from the house, the interior humidity was about five percentage points lower than it usually during a rainstorm. I need to collect a little more data before I can be sure that we'll have a consistent reduction in humidity. Our next water-related project will be a proper downspout for the porch roof.

My other thrill was receiving the new locks I ordered. The evening before we left for Chincoteague, the deadbolt on the front door failed. Fortunately it held together long enough for me to get it unlocked one final time, so we didn't have to call a locksmith to get into the house. We did have to immediately run over to the home supply store and get a new deadbolt, at which point Oz's car failed to start, boding really well for our trip. After we came home from the Eastern Shore (with no further mishaps, oddly enough), I decided that it would be nice to have all the exterior locks keyed the same. My house has two exterior doors, each with a locking entry doorknob and a deadbolt, each of which requires a different key. (This is doubtless the work of the same chucklehead who set up the roof to drain under the porch.) The home store sells other locks and doorknobs keyed to match the lock we just bought, but they didn't have the kind I wanted. But the Internet did!

So now we have shiny new locks. When I signed for the package, the UPS man asked if I was going to see the queen. (Queen Elizabeth II is in Virginia this week to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown and to cause traffic problems for commuters.) Hah. No. I was working today and I'm not enough of a Queen-o-phile to brave the crowds and the drizzle.

I called Oz and said, "Yay! The locks came! Isn't that exciting?"

He said, "Oh. That's excitement, huh?"

Yes. It is, especially in comparison to the hairball I found on the couch this morning.

I need to get out more.

A few hours later …

Well, we did get out. When Oz went to install the new deadbolt on the back door, he found that the old deadbolt was held in with hex screws, not Philips head like all the other locks. I said, "Don't you have a hex set? Isn't that, like, a requirement of manhood?" He said, "No, I got rid of a houseful of stuff when I moved in here. Argh. All my tools …" Oh, honey.

So, back to the home store we went. That's like going out, right? I mean, Tool World! El mundo de las herramientas! (I love the bilingual signage.) Now he has two pocket hex sets, metric and English, and we have the new locks installed on the back door. Darkness fell before he could replace the front doorknob, but by tomorrow evening we'll be a single key household.