Mario Kart

 R: Explain, for your grandparents, who don't play video games...what is Mario Kart?

Owen: Well, Mario Kart is GREAT kind of game on the Wii, which is like a screen filled of games you can play. And you drive a car or a motorcycle or a lot of other things, and it's really fun.

R: What makes it so fun?

Owen: I really think it's fun because you're driving this kart, and it's like you're trying to get as much points as you can to win a cup, and it's really fun for another reason but I can't figure it out. Maybe it's a spirit.

R: What makes Mario Kart more fun than racing hot wheels cars around in your room?

Owen: Well you actually are racing, but you're doing it on the screen, not on the floor, and you don't have to hear wheels scratching and you don't have to heart plastic scratching sometimes.

R: What makes it more fun than other video games you've played?

Owen: I don't know.

R: How much do you love Mario Kart?

Owen: VERY MUCH!

R: If I offered you no dinner, but an extra hour of Mario Kart, which would you take?

Owen: Mario Kart.

R: If I said you could play an extra round of Mario Kart for all of the money in your bank account, would you do it?

Owen: Well...it depends on what I have.

R: You have $73

Owen: I meant if I already buyed enough things for me to give all my other money to you.

R: What is your favorite part of the races?

Owen: Well, my favorite part of the races is actually probably bonking off other racers' cars.

R: What makes that so much fun?

Owen: I don't know.

R: Who do you like to play as, and which race courses do you like?

Owen: Well my top three favorites are Luigi Circuit, Mushroom Gorge, and Peach Gardens.

R: I thought you didn't like mushrooms. You won't eat anything that has mushrooms in it.

Owen: You forgot that I said "SCREEN."

R: Why do you like Peach Gardens?

Owen: Well there are these big, black things that I think that are supposed to represent dogs, that I think most people think they are supposed to represent dogs, but I call them chompers.

R: And why do you like chompers?

Owen: Well, they're active. And they can be really fun to dodge.

R: Do you think that playing Mario Kart will make you a better driver when you are old enough to drive a car?

Owen: Maybe. 

R: Why?

Owen: Well, come to think of it, driving is a car is almost like driving a Mario Kart car, too.

R: How do you drive a Mario Kart car. Keep in mind, your grandparents have probably never played a Wii. They might not even know what it is.

Owen: Well, um...ugvhgh, Dad...mmm...it's like, it's like...<Dad!> hm hm! It's like you're driving a car, except the circle is a small rectangle and your gas pedal is a button on the steering wheel.

R: What about stop signs, turn signals, right of way, changing lanes, etc.?

Owen: Nope, nope, nope, nope.

R: There are no stop signs in Mario Kart?

Owen: You have signs. And I mean, like track signs. Not like sign signs. 

R: Are there obstacles or dangers in the road that you need to be aware of?

Owen: Did you remember the chompers? Well, and when you play this let me give you advice. Follow the track. Oh, and you should probably play the Mushroom Cup first.

R: Felix, do you enjoy playing Mario Kart?

Felix: Mm-hmm!!

R: Why do you like it?

Felix: Because there's so much fun when it's like driving a real car! And there's NOT much buttons on it.

R: Are you good at it?

Felix: I am good at it. But I always don't finish.

R: What are your favorite things about Mario Kart?

Felix: That it's really, really fun, and that you get to steer the kart in person and there's a chair, but not a chair at the table. <giggles>

R: Which character are you?

Felix: Baby Peach! And also a lot of guys. I also be Bowser. Sometimes, or Koopa Troopa.

R: Grandma and Grandpa probably don't know who Bowser or Koopa Troopa are...can you explain who they are? 

Felix: Bowser and Koopa Troopa are not really friends. Bowser is like a dragon, but he's a character in Mario Kart who has spikes on his back but can only roar. Koopa Troopa, she's a turtle and well, she's pretty small with a weird bike called a bullet bike.

R: What is hard about Mario Kart?

Felix: That there's lots of dangerous stuff, like guns and chompers. But, I really like the good thing is that it's very easy. Actually, sometimes it hard. Because you have to stay on the track. If you go into the grass, you'll go...so that's not on the track. And sometimes they do two paths, and you can go somewhere

R: What does Big George think of Mario Kart?

Felix: Big George...well, he can't really play Mario Kart. But he still thinks it's impressive, and fun. He would say.

R: In your own words, as if explaining to Grandma and Grandpa, who maybe don't know about Mario Kart, why do you like it?

James: Well, it's one of the few video games that I'm good at now. And I think it's kind of fun steering a car around some tracks.

R: Would it be as much fun if you played it by yourself without your brothers?

James: It might be nice. But chances are that may not happen anytime soon. Owen thinks we should all take turns getting a turn at playing full screen. But I don't agree with that.

R: Can you explain what full screen is to those who may not know?

James: You get a choice in Mario Kart about playing one to four players. We usually play three players. 

R: How likely do you think it is that you guys will get to keep playing Mario Kart now that we are getting healthy again and have to do our regular amount of school and work?

James: I just hope that we can get some nights off, because I've grown in playing all of this, and fortunately summer is coming up and that will make it more of a chance to play Mario Kart because hopefully we'll have some school off and Mommy and Daddy will be on break on jobs.

R: Don't you want to keep on doing school for as long as possible through the summer?

James: No.

R: Don't you love learning?

James: That depends on what it is.

R: Practicing declensions is probably your favorite thing to learn?

James: No.

R: Your favorite school right now is...?

James: Perhaps dictation. Or...something else.

COVID

 We got COVID. 

The call came in on a Wednesday afternoon between orchestra services. I was in a coffee shop getting some church work done when J messaged with the news that she had been feeling cruddy, taken a test, and found the second line at the T. We were shutting everything down.

It was complicated for me. I had to somehow get back into the hall and retrieve my lunchbox and my trumpets without exposing anyone else, make sure that I left all of my music for upcoming services, and also wait around to give a (masked) ride home to the violinist who had carpooled with me from Rochester. 

I spent the next few hours sitting in the parking lot (waiting for her to get out of rehearsal) sending emails to students, personnel managers, pastors, etc. The Smiths would be unavailable for 10 days. After the initial shock of it wore off, I actually began to look forward to the time a little bit. As long as no one got too sick, we were going to have some time without travel. We could catch up on the homeschool (read: Science Labs) that we were behind in, read books, drink soup, and finish writing Easter music. We could even clean the house. We could clean it thoroughly--as in wiping all the dust of the fan blades thoroughly. Once I was done with my emails, I made a couple of lists.

The first order of business was to stop for supplies, and that meant getting groceries, wine, and doing a Lowe's run. I had broken the pull-string on our bedroom closet light a few days before, and picked up a replacement socket, new bulbs, batteries, pea gravel, and caulk. I even picked up one of those $20 electricity testers, because why not make doubly sure that you are not going to get electrocuted when doing a bit of minor rewiring? The only things I couldn't find in my initial supply run were plumber's putty at Lowe's and COVID tests at Wegman's.

J's first 48 hours were pretty brutal. She pretty much stayed in bed, and I got the kids through homeschool and meals. Our friends and family must not have much faith in my cooking ability, because we had a lot of takeout delivered to our door when the news got out that J was down. (Thanks for the pizzas, everyone!)

Then the kids started to get sick--James first, and then Felix. It was difficult for James, who lost his voice, to strike a balance between being too sick to finish the rest of his school but healthy enough to play Mario Kart with Owen.

I, in the meantime, got to work. I hired a trombone player for Easter, put away three weeks' worth of laundry piles, wrote an Easter introit, paid bills, did dishes, and scrubbed the upstairs bathroom from top to bottom. It was filthy, and I cleaned every inch of it--I recaulked the toilet and the tub, I cleaned the grout, I wiped out the shelves of the medicine cabinet.

Our tub has always drained slowly, and I wondered about trying to clear out some of the gunk in the waste line that Draino wasn't able to take care of. There is a little access door to the tub trap in James' closet, so I made my way into his room and tried to make sense of the pipes. It wasn't terribly difficult to get the PVC apart and to get into the cast iron pipe, and when I did I pulled out several enormous loads of grit, hair, and who knows what else. 

"Hooray!" I thought "Now our tub will drain. What an easy job that I have just completed!"

And then I attempted to reassemble the tub drain. And that was where things went downhill.

I started at the tub end first, and then I couldn't get the drain to connect to the cast iron pipe. So I took it all apart, started at the pipe end, and then couldn't get the PVC pipe to hook back up to the tub. I took it all apart again.

I should mention, by the way, that working in James' closet is not very easy. The floor is coated with about 4,000 LEGOS, and our summer clothes are hanging down directly over you. There is very little room to maneuver in the opening itself, and the piping is jammed up directly against the wall, so you can only get at it from one angle.

Finally, I had the trap back together, and it looked like I only had one more connection to make, which was just a little off-center. I pulled on the pipe to get the two ends to meet.

Snap.

Something gave in a way that I could tell, right away, it was not supposed to give. The PVC hadn't broken, but the main drain pipe had come unsealed from the tub. I took a look. This was not good.

Resealing it, of course, would require plumber's putty. The one thing I didn't get on my list at Lowe's. Also, this was going to require another set of hands. My wife was sick with the plague, and I couldn't have any friends over to help while we were quarantined. As a matter of fact, I couldn't even pull the emergency chute of calling a professional plumber while we were quarantined.

I confessed what I had done to J ("Why were you working on this?" "Nothing was broken and you took it apart anyway?" "When can we take showers again?") and she very gamely tried to help me get the drain flange screwed in again with bare hands and a screwdriver. Things looked grim. 

I should probably mention that at this point we already were both several days past needing a shower and a fresh set of clothes. I googled whether you could check into a hotel room while you were supposed to be quarantining. 

We kept on trying to get the flange to catch the threads of the pipe underneath, and it was difficult to tell what was happening with the two pieces, or how tightly we were getting it sealed. Periodically we would run some water in the tub to see if we'd made a seal yet, and the space under trap was getting rather damp. I reached in again to feel in the dark for the seal and

ZAP

I wasn't expecting to get a shock during a plumbing project (I even bought the safety equipment for this!), but it turns out that there is a wire running to one of the kitchen lights under the bathtub, and that this light was on while we were working upstairs. I went to the kitchen and found water dripping steadily from the light fixture over the sink.

Botheration.

My friend Joe ended up putting some plumber's putty and a special drain wrench in a bag on his porch, and I picked them up and brought them home. We never did get a good seal with the plumber's putty, but I managed to seal the drain flange with silicone caulk, and that seal has held through two days and three showers. The bathroom is now a spectacular mess from all of the tools and gunk and trudging in and out, and the tub doesn't drain any faster than it did before.

I keep checking to make sure that nothing was leaking every time someone used the tub and I did find a drip of water under one of the PVC seals further down the trap.

"Not a problem," I said to myself "I have purple primer and PVC cement in the basement."

I brough the primer up to James' closet and reimprinted some LEGO marks on my knees this afternoon. I got everything all coated up, and then opened the cement to find that it had turned into gelatin.

If anyone is out there and willing to save us, please send scotch and moist towelettes.