I don’t have many friends. I know others who appear to have scores of them, but I only have a handful. Perhaps that is an understatement, as my family is in my friend zone. However, my total “n” is still small.  

Don’t feel sorry for me; my lack of friends is by choice. I don’t want a lot of friends. I like people, and I enjoy spending time with others. Generally, people seem to like me. I’m friendly with many and treat everyone with kindness and respect. I have many acquaintances, just not many friends.

I take being a friend very seriously. I want to be there for my friends in any way that I can be. I want to be trusted, and I want to trust them. I hold my friends close. I hope that their association with me improves their lives, and I feel they absolutely enrich mine. I hope you now understand why I don’t have many friends. Being a true friend takes a lot of energy, and I only have so much energy. However, I’m happy to spend that energy on those I care about.

I am much better at taking care of others than having others take care of me. If you have read any of my past posts, you know the history behind my unwillingness to ask others for help. As I have previously said, in many ways, my lack of help growing up turned out to be a good thing; it made me independent and an excellent problem solver. Remember, things are neither good nor bad; they just are. It is how we approach life that matters.

Over the years, I have become more comfortable asking others for help. Indeed, I ask Julie and my kids to help me. I’m fortunate to be very close to my sisters, who have offered me their emotional help and support on many occasions. Things become more complex when I extend my needs beyond that tight sphere, but I’m trying. I need to grow in that direction.

Yesterday, we had a mini-disaster in Kunaland. It was after 10 PM. Julie and I heard a knock on our bedroom door. Grace said she had been running the shower to warm it up, but it was only running cold. I quickly confirmed her observation and then went to the basement to investigate. There, I could see a puddle of water at the base of the water heater and hear the sound of running water. I tried to shut off the intake water valve, but all of my turning did nothing. It was now almost 11 PM. I told everyone that there was nothing to do tonight and described to them the fine art of the sponge bath. Julie was well versed as her recent hospital stay made her an expert. We all did our best to clean up and went to bed.

My last task for the evening was to send a text message to my friend, Tom. I knew that he would be sleeping when I sent the message, and I asked him to call me in the morning. I said, “Tom, I need your help and advice; please give me a call.” I got a call back at 6 AM the next morning. Tom is a general contractor, and I trust his advice implicitly.

Tom is in the very final stage of finishing up a massive project. He restored a house that suffered flood damage on all three floors. The project took months and was mostly completed. The family was moving back into the home today. Yet, there were still a multitude of small things to finish ranging from installing door knobs to placing appliances. Tom would be enormously occupied today. I felt guilty bothering him, even for a phone call. 

“Tom, my water heater popped last night. The kids are up in arms. Can you use your contacts to help me get a plumber out today?” Tom replied, “Give me a minute; I’ll make some calls and get back to you.” Shortly afterward, he called back to tell me he had left some messages and was waiting. A wave of relief washed over me—then silence, then more waiting on my part. 

An hour passed, then two. There was nothing to do but to be patient. The doorbell rang, it was Tom. He told me the plumbers were busy, so he came out instead. In the bed of his GMC Denali pickup was a huge box, a new Bradford White water heater. Tom dropped everything and went to his plumbing supply house to pick it up. He was here to start the installation process himself.

We struggled to get it downstairs, then he sliced open the box and pulled the heater out. Tom brought down an enormous toolbox and fished around it to find a pipe cutter. Since I couldn’t turn off the broken intake valve on the water heater, I had to turn off the water throughout the entire house. With the cutter in hand, he quickly disconnected the broken unit and moved it off to the side. Despite having the house water off the disconnected water pipe continued to drip on the floor. Tom dug into his box and found a shutoff valve. However, he couldn’t solder the new valve onto a wet pipe.”Do you have any white bread?” Tom asked. I ran upstairs and found the remnants of a loaf. Tom took the bread and shoved it into the pipe, using it as a temporary plug. It worked, and he was able to solder the new valve onto the pipe. Once connected, he had me turn the house water back on, at which point he opened the valve, and the now soggy bread shot into a bucket. He reconnected all of the water pipes with a push here and a pull there. “Mike, I don’t have any black pipe for the gas line. I’ll have to return later tonight when I finish my job. At least you can run cold water now.” I thanked Tom, and he was on his way. I felt guilty as I was making his already complicated day even more complex for him. However, I felt incredibly grateful at the same time. At least with cold water, we could cook, clean, and, most importantly, flush the toilets. I was happy.

Less than an hour later, I got a call from Tom. Instead of returning to his worksite, he had picked up a black gas pipe at the hardware store. In a bit, he was back at my house working. Tom is very skilled, so it didn’t take him too long to make all the connections. It was then time to ignite the pilot light on the water heater. Tom tried and tried again, but it would not light. I recognized that an indicator on the unit was blinking in a sequence, and I counted the blinks, and it became apparent that the water heater was showing some sort of an error code. I looked it up on my phone, and it said it was due to a “thermostat sensor fault.” The service action was to “Check temp probe ohms” and to “check the water temperature.” What?? That was supposed to make sense? Without a mechanical understanding, I had no idea what the service manual was asking me to do. By then, Tom had received several calls from the homeowners and had to leave. “I’ll be back tonight,” he said. I felt terrible that I was messing up his day. He suggested that I try to ignite the water heater in his absence. I cut a large section out of the cardboard box in which the water heater was packed to use as a cushion on the wet utility room floor. I was in an incredibly awkward position in the utility room which was poorly illuminated by a lone flashlight pointing up toward the ceiling (I needed both hands to try to ignite the heater). Every attempt failed as the heater continued to mock me with its five-blink error code. The possibility existed that we would have to disconnect the water heater and return it for another one. That was a horrible possibility. Tom continued to call and check on my progress. “Well, Mike, at least it should be easier to install the next one.” The thought of disconnecting and returning the water heater was heavy. Tom said, “Why don’t you call tech support.” I said, “OK,” but I didn’t even realize that water heaters had a tech support hotline. I started searching on the web for an 800 number for Bradford and White. Finally, I got to the right place and was greeted by a charming lady who said she would help me.

I explained to her that I wasn’t a contractor and was unfamiliar with the water heaters’ ins and outs. She assured me that it was not a problem. With the speakerphone on the floor, and a drainage PVC pipe stuck in my back; I tried to start the heater again, with her giving me step-by-step instructions. They were no different from what both Tom and I had tried. No luck… all we got was the stupid 5-blink error code. 

She had me make sure that all of the external wires were attached. They were. Then, she asked me to remove the faceplate that protects the heater’s computer control board. Usually, this would not be a problem, but I was lying on my side in a dark utility room with a flashlight pointing at the ceiling. Oh, I also didn’t have a screwdriver. I told the support lady that I had to get one upstairs. She said, “Don’t worry… I’m here all day; I’ll wait for you.” I ran upstairs, rummaged through my anemic toolbox, and ran down with a couple of screwdrivers. None were correct. Two more trips finally yielded a broad but sharply chiseled screwdriver. That one worked. “Be careful; there is a ribbon cable that is very short. If it disconnects it will be very hard to reconnect” The cover came off with those words, and the ribbon cord disconnected. I could see where it plugged back in, but the wire was impossibly short. There was no way that I could see the connection point while getting the plug back in. I had to reconnect it by guess and feel, and I started to do that, thinking that I would never get it back in. This way, then that way, then “click” it was in!!  

“Make sure you tighten all of the screws; they serve as the earth ground. The heater won’t start up if they are not tightened enough” Hmm, where were those screws… oh, spewn all over the basement floor, of course!. One by one, I found and replaced them.  

“OK, now reconnect the external wires to the control box.” I crossed my fingers and did my best. “I’ll walk you through the startup sequence. Remember that you must hold the igniter button down for at least 15 seconds after the pilot lights to ensure that the thermocouple stays open.” It sounded like she was talking pig Latin. The words were familiar, but I was unsure if I understood the meaning. “I’ll do my best,” I told her. I turned the control knob to “pilot” and pressed it in. Then, I pressed the piezo-electric igniter 15 times. “Keep pushing the control knob in. I’ll tell you when to stop,” she said. “Tell me when the indicator light goes from red to green.” It seemed to stay red for an eternity, but then, like magic, it blinked green. I heard the “whoosh” sound of gas igniting, and the water heater was running. That little internal cable had disconnected from the control board during shipping. It was the cause of the malfunction. Just at that moment, Tom called again. We have flame!” I shouted. “We have flame!”  

This story has a happy ending, not just because we can all take hot showers tonight. When I first became friends with Tom, I saw my role as helping him. I built his website, took professional photos of his projects, wrote copy, and did many other things. It felt good to help Tom, and I felt good about myself. However, over the years, Tom has helped me countless times in ways I could never have helped myself. Today, he dropped everything to make sure that I was alright, and that is not the first time he has done that. I’m so fortunate to have a few true friends. I am so fortunate.