Breaking my "pot" dependence

"Shower" time!

There’s this game I play almost daily with my water heater, Takagi. It goes like this:

I flip the shower faucet to the hottest setting, check that the temperature is to my liking and shed my clothes. Then it’s Takagi’s turn. He dispatches liquid icicles through the showerhead to pierce my goose-pimpled flesh as I step into the tub. My turn again. I jump backward, curse and frantically grasp for the faucet, doing my best to sacrifice no more than shivering shins to the frigid spray as I struggle to cut off the flow. Then I scramble from the tub.

The rest of the game usually involves me, wearing nothing but a towel, stomping from kitchen sink to guest shower to master sink and back again as I test every water source for the slightest hint of warmth. Surely the exact combination of time, pressure and celestial alignment will finally equal hot water, and I can shower and make it to my appointment or job interview on time. But Takagi, curse him, always wins.

First World problem, right? I’m lucky to have access to hot water – however intermittently -- at all. Yesterday, I surrendered to that conniving water heater and bathed with a 5-quart pot of water boiled on the stove. Even as I stood shivering over this blessedly steaming pot in my tub, I realized how fortunate I was to have the ability to remedy the situation through electricity. And, if I’m being truthful, washing a la pot wasn’t so bad; I simply dipped a washcloth into the water, added a bit of soap and attacked the important bits (pits and parts). Dumping the remaining water over my body in one giant gush was borderline luxurious. Later that night, I debated reusing the pot to cook ravioli but thought better of it. First, perhaps a run through the dishwasher was in order.

Evil Takagi

I didn’t always live this way. When Matt and I first moved into this adorable, refurbished 1940’s cottage in the San Francisco suburbs, the supply of skin-reddening water seemed never ending; no matter how many back-to-back showers we took, the tankless water heater magically accommodated our demands for more. After growing up with a younger sister who required half-hour-long showers (to wash what, exactly?! I don’t think Hailey knows what a skin roll looks like) and could only be coaxed from the bathroom once our home’s hot water tank was exhausted (or by repeat flushing of the toilet), possessing such control over our hot water god felt otherworldly. Matt and I didn’t abuse our power (there’s a drought on, after all), but we certainly did appreciate it.

But then the dry season arrived and the cottage’s irrigation system switched on. Apparently, Takagi mandates a certain level of water pressure before he will engage. If the pressure is temporarily allocated to the lawn, Takagi refuses to perform until the timed cycle ends, our landlords told us.

This seemed easy enough to fix; Matt and I simply needed to adjust the sprinkler system so the various zones activated in the middle of the night, when we were unlikely to require a shower. Unfortunately, we neglected to consider the irrigation-happy neighbors behind us and how our properties, once united as one, share a water supply. 

Since the summer, Matt and I have waged epic battles against evil Takagi. We curse and bump around in the attic to beg an audience and reason with him, a fruitless endeavor considering he was manufactured in Japan and speaks only Japanese. Takagi’s digital display screen is basically a jumble of winking emojis and ninja nonsense. He simply can’t be reasoned with. And so we stomp around the house dressed only in towels and sometimes, when we’re especially aggravated, nothing at all. Perhaps our naked fury will scare Takagi into submission. At the very least, it’s bound to scare the neighbors.

I now realize I’ve been lazy about this whole Takagi situation. I must keep a running log of his misbehavior so I can prove it’s not connected to our sprinklers, now deactivated. And now that it’s raining again (quite substantially, I might add), I think it’s time I finally spoke to those neighbors and asked them what gives? It seems as if no matter what time I attempt to shower, the water pressure is drawn somewhere other than my shower faucet. How is that possible? Nobody waters the lawn that much.

But first, a shower. I see my pot of water has reached a nice boil.