Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “last thing that broke/you had to fix.” Think about the word that best describes the last thing that stopped working for you and use that word any way you’d like. Enjoy!
Linda G. Hill, The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Oct. 14, 2023
One of my children mentioned that the water smelled: sulfur-y, iron-y, not good. “Have you been adding salt to the water softener?” he asked.
I had, but the last time I had added salt, I was surprised to see salt still in the tank. “I’m not sure it’s working,” I said, and went down to our damp, dirt-floor basement to check.
Verdict: the water softener is not working.
The water softening system has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I don’t understand how it works. I dump salt in. It disappears, but I don’t hear anything that tells me something is kicking on and actually doing something.
Like the furnace, which did kick on this week as the temperatures dropped.
Everyone that walked through the door where I worked commented on the cold weather like it was a surprise. Seriously, this happens every year. Every. Single. Year. It’s hot in the summer, cold in the winter. This is not something new.
But I digress — the plague of Stream-of-Consciousness writing.
Water softener. I have no idea how old the system is, but it has worked its magic for many years.
I poked around at the mysterious water softener. Cobwebs. Corrosion. Dirt. They were all present. Probably not good for it. Tank with water and salt.
To be honest, I avoid the basement. It’s creepy.
I open the door once a year to let the furnace guy down to service the furnace — an appliance that makes far more sense to me. I go down periodically with bags of salt for the water softener. That’s about it.
One time I heard a noise in the basement and there were woodchucks. Seriously.
I can clean the dirt and the cobwebs, but the corrosion looks pretty unpromising. I think I need a whole new system.
Of course, I have to make a metaphor out this and ask the question(s) — where in my life do I have dirt and cobwebs that need to be cleaned? and, where is there so much corrosion that I just need to start new?
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 
Water softeners – we are on our 3rd one in this house! Necessary because of all the minerals in the water… My first clue that ours wasn’t working was rust spots on a load of whites!
Haha — that should have been my first clue, because YES! Same problem here!
Don’t you wish clearing the dirt and removing corrosion from the different corner of our life could be hired out as easily as calling a cleaning crew or hiring a repairman?
Don’t know if that was used at our house.