Man Voice and the Water Heater

After waiting for ten minutes for the shower to warm up, Lia realized that something must be wrong with the water heater. Dread shot through her. A broken water heater at the end of October? She was going to die. But she really did need that shower. She was less than fresh, and adding more deodorant just wouldn’t cut it. 

With an incredibly powerful shiver, Lia slipped out of her towel and into the shower. She gave a strangled gasp. It was freezing! For a girl who enjoyed warm showers and never ended a shower before fifteen minutes, it was a miracle beyond words how quickly she managed to wash. For a girl who despised being cold, it was miracle she hadn’t died before she got out. Of course, it could have had something to do with the fact that she hardly bothered to get all of the conditioner out of her hair, or to make sure that the suds were rinsed out of her armpits. 

Lia pulled her towel around her, teeth chattering hard enough to make her sound like one of those wind up mouth toys. Of course none of the other girls had to deal with a freezing shower. No, they all showered earlier because they were getting ready for the apartment Halloween party tonight! They had been able to take humane showers, while Lia had almost DIED.

After she was dressed, Lia opened her bedroom door so that she could hear the people downstairs while she was toweling off her hair. The other girls were getting picked up by their dates. Who had even come up with this party idea anyway? All of the guys going had been assigned a girl’s name that he was to escort to the party. That idea right there excluded Lia because she was dating someone in a different apartment complex. Oh well. She could just spend the rest of the evening catching up on all of that homework. 

“What? Something’s wrong with your water heater?”

Lia perked up. That was a man voice she didn’t recognize. That didn’t exactly mean anything since she was non-interesting due to her status as non-available. Lia didn’t really talk to a lot of boys in her apartment complex. She tuned back into the conversation downstairs. It was about making the freezing water not freezing.

“…what Lia says, anyway,” Ally was saying. Lia sniffed. It is broken!, she thought.

“Well, have you checked the pilot light?” asked the same man voice.

“The what?” Only one girl said it, but Lia was pretty sure that they were both thinking it.

“Will you let me check it?”

“Be my guest.”

Lia held her breath as she heard someone open the closet with the furnace and water heater. 

“Your pilot light is off, that’s all. It’s not broken.” A click. “There. All fixed.”

Lia was in serious danger.

“You mean that we’ll have warm water again?” asked Ally.

“Yes,” said that wonderfully angelic man voice.

And that was it. It was sealed. Lia was in love with Man Voice. Too bad she didn’t know who he was.



NOTE: This is a bit of writing that I've been working on. It's an adaptation of how the Engineer met the Princess. And remember what they say: Fact really is stranger than fiction.

Next Installment: Plotting a Quest