Adapting

With the rise in technology and innovation, I think we're losing our ability to adapt. When we run out of something, we get in our cars and drive to the store. When we need something fast, we order it from Amazon. When something breaks, we immediately go buy a new one to replace it. While none of these are bad reactions in any way, we've forgotten how to "deal with it." We don't text a neighbor if they have any sugar because we don't really know our neighbors anymore. We don't think of ways how to go without something we don't have for a time. We don't think how to fix something before buying a new one. 

I had this thought because our kitchen sink has been causing us problems for nearly two weeks now. We discovered the water hose up the faucet was leaking. Our kitchen faucet has a lifetime warranty so we filed a claim. They were going to ship us a new part. Great! We just had to wait for it. This wasn't so bad. The worst part was anytime we pulled down the sprayer in our kitchen sink, another stream of water from the hose would shoot out. It would spray out and splash onto other nearby items. What was the worst thing that happened? I got an unexpected wet spot on the front of my shirt one day while rinsing dishes. Oops. 

Once the new part came, it was supposed to be a quick fix. There was a quick release to disconnect the broken hose and we'd attach the new hose. Simple, right? Well, it was supposed to be....

Turns out, when we released the broken house, the quick release collar also broke and wouldn't hold the new hose in place. We tried. Water sprayed everywhere. We had a soaking cabinet. 

We tried looking online for a replacement part. It wasn't easy to find. Any places which had it would need to be shipped to us and would take at least a couple days. Home Depot and Lowe's don't carry this part because it's too specific.  It's literally a less than $5 piece of plastic that we need to hold our hose together. 

Without any quick solutions, I contacted customer service again and they found the part to ship us. Again, it was covered under warranty so we didn't have to pay anything. We would just have to wait.....another week for it to arrive.

I've still reached for it or walked to the sink intending on using the faucet multiple times.

 

Thankfully, we could keep the water to the house on while we waited for this repair. We just couldn't turn on the kitchen faucet or we'd have a water feature underneath the sink. How did we cope?

We save water from our bathtub in laundry detergent jugs. I really thought I had written about it before on my blog and had hoped to link it, but I couldn't find it. In short, we save water and it came in handy to use as dish-rinsing water during this time of inconvenience. 

This water helped to rinse anything that could go into the dishwasher. For anything needing to be hand-washed, we carried it outside in a basin and used the hose to wash dishes. Honestly, it's not so bad. Our grass gets some extra water in very localized areas it wouldn't ordinarily receive, food bits are kept out of our bathroom sinks and bathtub drains, and everything gets clean as it usually would, just from a different water source and location. 

All in all, I wouldn't call this that inconvenient. All I have to do is take the dishes outside to wash. I still have running water. We still have dish soap. I have a sponge to scrub everything. And most of all, we have a working dishwasher to do 50-80% of the daily dishes. 

I received the shipping confirmation from the company for the broken part. I'm hoping to receive the piece by this weekend so we can have it replaced and use our kitchen sink again by next week.  As much as I hate to say it, doing the dishes this way probably saves me water compared to washing it all in the kitchen sink. I've learned to rinse dishes for the dishwasher with one gallon of water per meal. I definitely use more than a gallon of water rinsing dishes after a meal when it comes out of my kitchen faucet. Maybe I need to permanently keep a basin in the kitchen sink to hold water to rinse dishes so I'm not running the faucet as long. 

This week feels a little inconvenient, it can be laborious, and it can seem very frustrating. We've had to change our routine and habits. I've had to stop myself from accidentally turning on the kitchen faucet. But if I didn't write all this down, I think the events of this week would be forgotten in a few weeks or months, and definitely years. Our broken hose connector and the week we washed dishes outside would just file into the long lost memories of our family. 

Never stop forgetting how to adapt. It makes everything smoother, even when it's really not.