Monday, March 31, 2008
The Day My Spindletop Blew In!
Everyone would like to have an interest in an oil well especially with oil at or exceeding a price of $100 per barrel. I happen to be one of the fortunate ones, or unfortunate depending on one’s perspective, who can make such a claim. My interest, however, is a very small part in a very small well that is on the verge of being totally pumped out. Since I inherited my portion from my father the well has not come close to producing a royalty sufficient to cover the taxes that I must pay on the producing lease. And that was before the leaseholder filed for bankruptcy. Unless a gusher suddenly erupts beneath the well site, there is no possibility that I will every have a self-sufficient oil well. I know it is hard to believe but it is true.
I spent much of my life only a little more than a dozen miles south of Stephens, Arkansas, and a little more than 30 miles west of El Dorado, both booming oil sites in their prime. But here I am stuck with my own oil-depletion tax. The only thing is that in my case the oil well is depleting my pocket book like a very slow leak in one’s toilet bowl—a minor nuisance rather than a serious matter.
But that brings us back to the topic of my spindletop. Everything began last week in routine fashion—not that anything is every routine in our household. I had decided to put a new towel rack in my bathroom to replace the old shower rod that had served as a towel rack since before we bought the house. I drilled into the sheetrock wall thinking that with the simple insertion of a couple of toggle bolts, the entire job could be finished in no more than five minutes. Wrong! In a couple of seconds I had drilled through the sheetrock but then encountered an immovable object. “No big deal,” I thought. It is probably just a nail and if I move over an inch or so I will have the needed hole. After two more holes hit immovable objects, I decided that I either needed a new drill or should explore other options before I had a neat line of quarter-inch hole across the bathroom wall. With a flashlight I quickly determined that the immovable object behind the sheetrock was nothing other than a brick wall. Now before anyone jumps to any conclusions, there was absolutely no indication that there was a brick wall beyond the sheetrock. It was all perfectly concealed just waiting to pounce on an unsuspecting homeowner, which in this case just happened to be me.
But once again I digress. Back to Spindletop. Some guests had noticed a slow leak in the toilet in the back bathroom. As noted above this would probably just qualify as a minor nuisance to most people. Unfortunately, I decided to tackle the problem head on. I removed the tank top and turned a few screws here and there and quickly determined that a new water valve was needed. I suddenly remembered that an extra valve had come with the house and was out in the garage. I went to the garage and found said object, thinking that I had saved a couple of bucks. I then shut off the water, drained the tank, disconnected the water supply and went to work. In a couple of minutes there was a nice hole in the bottom of the tank eagerly smirching and just waiting for its replacement. I fitted the new valve and tightened the retaining screw and then reconnected the water supply. A nice little stream of water poured through the water line onto the floor. I turned off the water and determined that the seal was still in the old valve. I retrieved the same and forced it into its new home. I then gently turned on the water supply. There was no leak. I congratulated myself on a job well done and then turned the water supply to full on.
Suddenly, the new valve inside the tank exploded with a vengeance in my face. Water was everywhere, or at least as far as I could determine. It is hard to see clearly when one has just received a blast of water in one’s eyes. Well the blast was not directly in my eyes since I was looking at the ceiling at the time but the ricochet was directly in my eyes. It was a gusher to rival spindletop. True it was not spewing 150 feet in the air and there was no one standing by to offer me a pot of gold to sleep in my bathtub. But when one is in a small confined area and water is literally bouncing off all the walls and it seems like you are about to be inundated with a 100,000 barrels of water. There is no time to think of royalties and no time to worry about the ensuing water bill and the drain on one’s pocketbook. There is only time to react. One must access the shut-off valve as quickly as possible before my wife’s new wallpaper floats off the wall. But that is no easy task when one cannot see. You do recall that I said that that I had tackled the project head on. Eventually, I managed to put my hand on the cut-off valve and everything was ok again.
Ok that is if one considers being in a flooded bathroom with water dripping off the walls and the newly applied wallpaper threatening to fall on you at any moment. I managed somehow to get the placed dried out and then looked to see the cause of my recent discomfort. The pink valve that controls the water supply in the tank had been turned slightly to the right and the tabs that had secured it in place had taken it upon themselves to join in a water balloon massacre upon the party of the first part which in this case just happened to be me. I tentatively repositioned everything and determined that there was no missing screw or glue to hold everything in place, nothing but a quick twist to the left. And then there was only the final test to turn the water back on. Of course, this time I was looking at the floor and my hand never left the cut-off until there was no indication of a second gusher.
And now there are only two unfinished pieces of busine: the water bill and to check with the IRS to see if there is a water depletion allowance.
