Hubby had a pretty crappy birthday earlier this week.
We had been looking forward to a visit to either Kamogawa Sea World or Mother Farm in Chiba – but had to cancel it because something came up at the mosque.
Actually, a few things came up at the mosque the previous week.
First, the gas supply was cut for a few hours.
Then, there was a problem with the water pump in the basement – which had just been replaced last September, so we were very much perplexed when there was no water on the upper floors except for the first floor.
The water pump problem turned out to be caused by a flooded water tank area.
Then, the kitchen sink in our house clogged badly, tried to be fixed up by a friend but ended unusable due to some leakage.
We also found out that the water heater in our bath is actually 27 years old and needed a replacement badly.
Not to mention the water heater at the kitchen – not quite 27 years, but also in need of replacement as the maker no longer produce spare parts for this particular model, and it no longer functions properly.
The gas supply was cut for a few hours because apparently the bills were not settled in time. Hubby made a few calls – because normally the bills are paid elsewhere by someone else in the ICOJ, unless they specifically ask hubby to pay the bills by depositing some money in our account. There had been no request for him to pay the gas bills before and he had faxed the bills to the person normally in charge of paying the bills back in January or February.
The person claimed that he had received no such thing. Hubby then faxed the fax that he had sent earlier, to which the person claimed that he could not make the payment because he need the original stub to do so, and hubby did not send him the original stub. Hubby asked him back – what about earlier bills then? How did he settle the payment for the earlier bills? He said he either came to pick up the original stubs in the office or he asked hubby to send them by post. So, why didn’t he ask hubby to do the same this time around? Or send some money to us so that we could pay them ourselves? The person on the other line of the phone went really quiet…
Gas is needed for a lot of things – the heater, the hot water supply, for cooking (we don’t have ‘tong gas’ like we have back in Malaysia), so I asked hubby to use our money first to pay the bills, which he did, and I called the gas company to resume the service, which they did within a few hours.
Just as we felt relieved at having the gas back, suddenly there was no water in our house. The last time this happened was back in last year’s Ramadhan, and back then it was due to some problems related to the water pump in the basement. Hubby went down to check on it – found the water tank to be full, but the pump did not seem to be functioning.
Because the water pump caused a small fortune (about RM10,000), it came with free after sales service, so we called up the water pump company. A technician arrived in the evening to give it a look. Apparently the water tank area in the basement was flooded – so he asked us to clean and dry up the water tank first before he can give the water pump a proper look. Understandably, he was reluctant to give it a proper inspection, perhaps afraid of being short circuited or something.
Hubby made a few other calls to some people that night. Unlike in September when water at least reached the 2nd floor, this time water was only available on the 1st floor – and he had to carry a few buckets of water up to the 5th floor, out of consideration for me.
Kamarol happened to stay with us that night, plus another Bangladeshi musafir from Hokkaido – so hubby engaged their help to clean up the basement a bit. It was filled with lots and lots of junk – plastic wares, steel poles, used clothing and all kind of waste. Hubby had never cleaned them out before this, because most of them were too heavy to be handled by a lone man. He had asked for help before from ICOJ people to clean the basement, but his request was easily dismissed and he was told in reply to ask for help from his friends to clean the place up.
Alhamdulillah, early the next morning, there was an electrician who is a friend to a friend, who agreed to come and take a look at the flooded basement. After some poking here and there plus using some equipment hubby forgot to use, they managed to dry up the water tank area a bit and got the pump working – at least to get the water up to the 4th and 5th floor. Another call was made to the water pump company, asking them to take another look.
They had the matter fixed somehow the following evening, to hubby’s great relief, because it was Thursday then, and it was important to have the water supply on the 2nd floor because that is where people have their ablution and the following day was a Friday when a lot of people would be coming for Jumu’ah prayer.
However, just as I was about to rejoice in having water at the house, Kamarol became extra ‘rajin’ and tried to fix the often-clogged kitchen sink by using pipe cleaner liquid (as well as pipe cleanser pills) and an old-fashioned black rubber stick pump. His mission failed, and we had a leakage instead, rendering the kitchen sink totally out of order.
And the water supply to the 2nd floor stopped just as Jumu’ah prayer was about to begin.
Thus Friday yet witnessed another effort by the water pump boys. They succeeded to a certain degree, with a promise of a return trip on Sunday evening.
Friday too witnessed a kind friend calling up washroom accessories suppliers to get quotations for bathroom hot water heaters, and someone promised to come and visit us and give a quotation on Monday.
Sunday, the water boys came again for yet another repair session. Hubby asked one of the guys to take a look at our out-of-use kitchen sink which he did. He tried some pumping/probing/poking, but to no use, so he ended up putting some sort of powder, asking me to refrain from using the sink for one whole day and he would return the next day to take another look.
With two different companies promising to visit us on Monday, it meant we could not go out, which also meant a cancellation of any trip to celebrate hubby’s birthday.
Which perhaps explained why he was not in a good mood that day. When I asked if there’s anything he would like me to cook for him that day – he just growled that he does not celebrate birthday, just cook whatever I felt like cooking. And he growled a lot that day, complaining about this and that – which in turn made me felt a little bit exasperated too, but I tried to contain it because it was his birthday after all.
The water pump boy returned on Monday, when everything finally returned to normal – resumed water supply on all floors, working kitchen sink in our house, and all. The guy from washroom accessories shop called us to postpone his appointment to two days later though.
As for hubby, I cooked some Indonesian rawon (East Javanese beef soup with lots of spices) and one of his favourite dish, ayam masak sos but they were left untouched. He did not even took any dinner.
But then again, it was his birthday after all. He could growl and sulk all day long if he wanted. Probably anyone else would sulk too if it happened to them – a crappy birthday following a crappy week…
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