Tues., March 27, 42 A.B.
Hi, my name is Dan, and I'm addicted to faucets. I suppose I always have been.
Even when I was a child, scarcely a day went by that I didn't feel the need to get my hands on at least one set of faucets. Almost everyone in my immediate family seemed to be the same way, so maybe it's genetic. Or maybe it was just the times I grew up in, what with casual faucet use being depicted in countless TV commercials for soaps, cleansers, dish detergents, drain cleaners - the list is endless. Whatever the reason, the fact is that I developed a chronic, physical need for both kitchen and bathroom sink fixtures early on in life.
Alas, one good turn led to another and by the time I was a teenager, I was shamelessly fiddling with every dirty little garden hose faucet I could, no matter how ugly the building it happened to be attached to....
I thought I'd overcome this compulsion of mine several years ago after completing a month-long treatment program in which all the latest aversion therapies were employed. You know - endless viewings of the shower scene from "Psycho" while dressed up as Janet Leigh; endless shocks from the hot-wired faucets in my room; endless lectures and slide show presentations which always ended with "This is your brain. This is your brain in an understaffed, roach-infested nursing home after it spent a lifetime playing with faucets when it could have gotten a real job and saved up enough money for a decent retirement"; endless middle-of-the-night knocks on the door from Mormons dressed up as the latest in washerless Delta fixtures....
The irresistible virgin faucets that my landlord installed in my laundry room last October revealed just how tenuous my recovery had been. His simple act of proper property maintenance proved once and for that a guy like me can never put this sort of addiction behind him for good. Well, not unless a guy like me really, really wants to, anyway - and who wants to do that when addiction can be so much damn fun??
Well, fun for 4 or 5 months at a stretch, anyway. Then the blisters on one's hands really force one to give it a rest.
Unfortunately for readers of this journal who have been enjoying my lack of postings, that latest 5 months' stretch is at an end even as the blisters on my hands have left me unable to do much of anything else besides type.
So sue me.
Or better yet... how about getting me a nice fresh glass of water while I watch?
(© Every Now and Then by DJ Birtcher)