There are days that I’m proud of this business; days that I feel completely competent in it and formulate great plans for expansion. Days that I feel completely satisfied by working with my hands and for myself.

Today is not one of those days.

Today is the second day in a row that I’ve rolled before dawn in order to get a unit tested before the laundromat which it supplies opens at 7 AM. Yesterday, a key valve stem broke off in my hand; luckily, the valve was still half open, so those people had water for the day.

I bought my very expensive replacement valve (the unit is right up at the larger end of what I’m comfortable working on) and planned to replace it this morning.

I unloaded all of my tools; my pipe wrenches, my small but very heavy toolbox, and the giant pipe stand that I’d brought out specifically for this job.

I got the wrap cut off of the union, only to discover that this called for the next size pipe wrench. The three-footer, which I don’t have, would be expensive to buy, and the hardware store isn’t open yet anyway. So I loaded everything back up and ran in to work to borrow the big one from one of my contractors, which I shouldn’t be doing, but I’ve lent them tools often enough to make it even.

Back out to the site. Unload everything again. Set the pipe stand back up. Everything came apart easily, and I got my valve replaced with no problem. That’s a bad sign; Murphy will get me before I’m through.

Of course, when I went to put the whole assembly back in line, I couldn’t for the life of me get the union to align again. It was close, and it should have worked, but the threads just weren’t grabbing. After struggling for half an hour, I called Marv to come be muscle for me. He wasn’t getting it either, and I was on the phone calling information for a plumber when it finally caught. I just didn’t have the strength to lever it back into place; that last eighth of an inch was killing me. Thank you Marv!

So I got all set up to run the test finally, and an internal part is bad too (of course.) I have to get that and get up at dawn again tomorrow to fix that. Next time, I’m just going to start with a plumber if I have to replace the big external parts, and bill it on through to the client.

This hasn’t been a terribly fun week.