Saturday, October 5, 2013

My Daily Wars:

Me vs. Heater

I have discovered a solution to world water shortage…no kidding, break out the Nobels and make space besides the Dalai Lama...i have a legitimate solution. You just have to install a German 'Tristar- Machen wir beste Qualität!' water heater in your house. Plus of-course throw in the German weather (basically 11.5 months of winter, 1 week of Saharan temperature, and that one odd week in June when the sun switched from Google maps to AppleMaps and mistakenly ended up in Germany) and Voila! you have saved yourself some water.
Yes cos my apartment heater, the famous ‘Tristar’ ofcourse, is an extremely environment friendly thing. It doesn't tolerate if you have a hot water bath for more than 6mins (hey you can save a lot of water if you take a shorter bath!) and makes sure you obey that rule too.

Round I

The first day in my apartment and im in bath.
1min in : the water is still running cold...
2 mins: its scalding hot and im trying to adjust an optimum….
3 mins: and have finally achieved the magical combination for perfectly warm water....
4-5 mins im enjoying my bath.
5th minute: and the heater makes a clucking sort of noise...as if 'it' cannot believe my audacity at having a bath and wasting water for more than 5mins.
I ignore and continued my bath. Of course now i know, but didnt have a clue back then that continue beyond 5.5 mins and the heater has all the symptoms of a mini-heart attack. It’s making gasping noises and grunts, giving an impression of slowly suffocating. And then even as i am leaning out of the bath to check the heaters vital signs, we cross the crucial 6 min mark! It goes ‘Phuttt’and then gives a mini-nuclear explosion, pours thick steam and at the same instance turns the shower water from warm to icy cold.
It’s all i could do to jump out of the bath, barely grab my towel and make it out of the explosion range desperate to dial the Fire department. I am close to having a heart-attack of my own. However in the two seconds it takes me to reach my room the heater has calmed down, the ‘water conservation’ mission accomplished, it’s contently back to humming normally. And I am left to warm the icy cold water out of my hair in the freezing room.
Retrospectively thinking, its good that the heater sobered down on its own cos neither do i know the fire department’s number nor do i have any bloody idea how to shout "HELP" in German!!!

Round I : Heater-1 , Me-0

Gearing up for Round II....