House 1, Achan 0.

I just came back from hauling a coupla boxes to my house. Yeah, house. Mine. It makes me feel grown up to say that. Well, as grown up as a 27 year old who still reads comic books, plays Wii, thinks a bowl of cereal and cartoons are a fine way to spend a Saturday morning, and often replies to students with "your face" when he doesn't agree with what they think can feel. A pseudo grown up. I even called my contractor to complain about a few things. I mean, we're only like, what, a month behind schedule. I guess he figures, "heck what's a little more time between friends!" Well, I don't think we're friends, I have like 3 friends and last time I checked, sir, none of them are named Larry. Maybe he thinks he's getting paid by the hour. Or better yet, maybe it's like the crazy Winchester lady. My contractor probably thinks that if he stops building, he will die. That guy's got problems. But I digress.

While I was at my house I got my hands a little dirty, so I did what any normal person would do: I washed my hands. Or, rather, I attempted to wash my hands. I turned on the hot water, let it run for a few seconds, put my hand in the water, and then marveled at the smell of delicious boiling dark meat. Turns out that oh-so-alluring-aroma was coming from my hand. I didn't get any third degree burns, but it kinda smarted a bit. And I might have cried a little. But I'm not ashamed to admit that. I'm secure enough in my masculinity. To cry. Just not in front of people. That would be a pansy thing to do. I'm a pansy. So, after getting almost burned I decided to go check out the hot water heater. I don't know how many of you have experience with heaters, so I'll describe mine.

My gas heater is the prettiest gas heater on the block. She's big and cylindrical and enjoys long walks on warm beaches. Those things aren't really that important. What is important is that there is a dial on the heater with notches that stand for various temperatures. It would be super duper awesome if someone was smart enough to label each notch with its temperature setting, but I guess that's not going to happen until we perfect the flying car and meal in a pill. Bigger fish to fry, right? After a few minutes of fishing around, I found the heater's manual where there was a lovely diagram of the temperature setting for each dial. My water heater was set to 140 degrees Fahrenheit. 140 F may not sound so bad (at least it didn't to me). That is, it didn't sound so bad until I read the half page opposite from the diagram.

It went something like this: Warning families with small children or the elderly may want to use lower settings to avoid burns blah, blah, blah. This was followed by a brief description of how many seconds it would take for skin to burn at each temperature. It goes a little something like this:

120 F - 10 minutes
125 F - 2 minutes
140 F - 6 seconds
150 F - 2 seconds
160 F - 0.5 seconds
170 F - 0.25 seconds
180 F - There wasn't a time given, just a skull and bones with the eyes x'd out. Damn that's hot!

Ok, so I made the last part up. However, my heater goes up to 160 F. I mean, I guess I could see why you would want 160 F temperature water coming out of your faucet. Maybe you wanted a boiled potato, like, right now... at this very moment. You just pick it up and hold it under the faucet for a minute or so and PRESTO! Ready to mash! And before anyone say anything, yes, I know that water boils at 212 F and you'd probably have to hold that potato for quite some time under your hundred sixty degree water, but I can guarantee you that somewhere in America someone is attempting to do this at this very moment. So, that's how it goes. Apparently someone saw it fit to have hot water that could take your skin off in six seconds. For those of you who are big fans of hot water, but not so much of skin. Between 120 and 125 degrees if what the manufacturer recommends the heater is set to, in case you were wondering. 125 degrees is significantly less than 140, give or take a few degrees.

I just thought this was a fucking weird thing that my tiny boy brain just happened to latch on to. Yeah, I know, kinda weak for my first post in about a kajillion years, but fuck it, it's my blog, and if you don't like it, go to hell.

Oh, and if you started reading this thinking it had anything to do with that time Hugh Laurie beat me at tennis, well I apologize. Maybe some other time.