Tales from the Tank #4

My sister just asked "So where's the rest of the story?" (She already has an inside, cuz she's heard most of this already).
As we left off in the previous blog, Tales of the Tank #3, Terry has just purchased 25 feet of amazing Aquarium Hose designed to fill, clean and remove the water from your new fish tank.

We returned home from the amazing fish store with our new purchases, we were ready to go.  He tore into the package like a kid with a Christmas present and got everything out and went into the bathroom (which is less than 25 feet away).  He then tells me we're gonna need an adapter for the faucet and where's the one we had when we had the waterbed? We had a waterbed in the 80's.  So the search began for the adapter we had somewhere in the house.

After searching cupboards and drawers with no luck, he looks at the clock and decides it's too late for the hardware store, so he wants to run to Wal-Mart.  But WAIT....he can't leave cuz his new favorite show is about to start. Sons of Anarchy.  We run downstairs to start the DVD recorder - which only Matt has mastered and end up watching the first 15 minutes before he heads off to Wal-Mart in search of an adapter. 
I am warned:  "You better pay attention so you can tell me what happens".

30 minutes later he returns. No adapter. He went over to Lowe's but they were closed.  I did pay attention and brought him up to speed on who killed who and exactly what happened.
Unwilling to give up, he decides we'll try to do it without the adapter.  So we extend the hose, and while trying to get water to go through the hose, he pushes a little too hard on the faucet, can't figure out why no water is coming over to the tank - and decides to check one more place downstairs.

Thank goodness he did, because for some reason when he got to the basement, there was a puddle of water on the floor under where the sink would be.  He yells "Barb...get down here". There is water in the furnace room, water in the back room and he can't figure out why. So it's left to me to clean up the mess.

He comes back upstairs and looks under the sink...and yells "Barb...get up here". (I think the running up and down the stairs helped me post a 2 lb loss at weigh in last week).

The entire cabinet under the sink was filled with water (ok, not that much cuz it had already run down the walls in the basement). I got that cleaned up, dried up and stuff put back.  THEN he figures out, pushing up on the faucet, caused the water to back fill under the sink.  Wow, that would have been nice to know BEFORE we did it.

In total defeat we decide to give up for the night. It's now about 11pm. As we are cleaning up the mess we have in the living room, bathroom and everywhere else, Terry says, "You'd think for $45 they would have included the @#$% adapter."

As he winds up the 25 foot of hose...he asks, "where should we put it?". I replied, just put it back in the plastic bag, and we'll store in the end table.

As he picks up the bag and the wire ties, he picks up the cardboard the hose was wired to and starts to curse.  There on the back on the cardboard insert - still attached with a wire tie - is a lonely little hose adapter just waiting to be used.  (I still laugh out loud over this one).

An hour later (about 12:30am), we have a fully functioning 40 gallon tank, treated with clorine and filled with "Fish Tank Approved" decor....just waiting for fish. Did I mention I have to be up at 5am?

Moral of this story: check all packaging before you run around town at 10 p.m. looking for the missing piece.