Real Men Wrap Pipes

We've been having uncharacteristically cold weather here in Houston for weeks now, starting on Dec. 4 when it actually snowed. Since then we've had several freezing episodes, which newscasters referred to as "Arctic blasts", and people looked for excuses to stay home from work due to "possible icy roads". One day, it was so cold that I went on an unsuccessful search for a pair of reasonably priced gloves. After visiting about half a dozen stores, which had either sold out of gloves or had only one or two expensive pairs remaining, I found what was literally the second-to-last pair of gloves at a Target for $9.99 — but they were men's gloves and way too big for me. I bought them anyway, out of desperation, but the next morning when I wore them while walking the dog I felt like a puppy myself, waving my too-big paws at passersby.

However, one thing I discovered during the first freeze a few weeks back is that my fiancé is quite adept at wrapping pipes. In fact, I would say that of our five neighbors (some of whom didn't bother to wrap their pipes at all) he did the best job. I also discovered that it's possible for me to be impressed by things like pipe-wrapping, which is not something I'd ever given much thought to before everyone began warning us that the subzero temperatures could burst the water lines.

I was so impressed by the job he did, in fact, that I took photos of it.

Now, maybe this is a perfectly horrible pipe-wrapping job — if it is, I wouldn't really know. But it sure seems like those pipes are well-insulated to me.

A few days later, my sister was glancing through the photos on my digital camera and saw these pipe pictures. She asked me what they were, and when I told her, she gave me the weirdest look. I think becoming a homeowner has cost me my "cool older sister" status — not that I was ever that cool.