As the old adage says, close counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and, of course, hot tub repair. I’m not much with the whole horseshoe (though I’m deadly accurate with the beanbag toss), and I’ve never even held a live grenade, but hot tubs and I have a long, adversarial history.

I got my tub about five or six years ago. It was “pre-owned” even then. People said after a month I’d never use it. Man, were they wrong. Winter, summer, dead of night, it was a good friend to my aching body, especially after a gig with the band when my knees were aching and back was sore. It was also my reason to work out. I wouldn’t let myself, as Tenacious D would say, “Dip my toe to jacuzzi” unless I had exercised first. There were some exceptions, like gig night and more importantly when, shall we say, getting in the hot tub was, uh .... someone else’s idea. Ah, youth.

It didn’t die suddenly. Like a debilitating disease, it went gradually. First I could replace smaller parts and do a heavy dose of jury-rigging to keep it alive. I once found a dead snake that I thought was a piece of rope inside the motor housing when I was repairing it. In the end, a worn-out noisy motor was partnered with a faulty control box and the poor thing took a deep six. That was two and a half years ago. Somewhere between business and complacency, there it sat in hibernation. For the most part, it sat because I always had something better to spend $500 on. We are rolling in money here at 365, but unfortunately, they’re all singles. But April was a good month.

Actually, personally, April was one of the worst months ever. I lost a grandma to cancer and alzheimers and two great people to tragedy. I fell and broke a step on my deck with my keester (a 2” x 12”) and I’ve had nary a moment of free time since I don’t know when. But financially, I had such a good month I paid off all my looming debts and decided to treat myself to a resurrected hot tub. I spent the money and ordered the parts. I’m not sure what led me to think it was just going to start working.

There are two key steps to the process, not including cleaning out an two-year-abandoned tub in freezing weather. There are water piping and 220-volt electricity. If not immediately obvious, those two things do not go together like, well, bacon and cheese. I decided to beg a much smarter (electrical engineer) friend to help me with the power. Surely, I can handle the PVC on my own. The PVC did match the existing piping coming from the tub. There was about an inch and a half mismatch in the alignment of the tubes and it was two inches short of the necessary length. Those poor girls at the hot tub store. They bent over backwards to find me the parts to create the I think we had 15 parts worth $50 to get what we needed. In the end, I had the solution I needed in two parts for under four bucks. But I felt so bad for all the work the girls went through, I couldn’t take back the parts.

With the help of a hacksaw, a borrowed few minutes on the bench vise at Herbst Upholstery (our neighbor at the 365 offices), PVC cement and some outside-the-box thinking (the instructions never said the pump mechanism had to necessarily sit level with the ground), the PVC went together. Thankfully there is a modicum of flexibility and give to PVC pipe. I used every bit of it and then some. Naturally it leaked the first time I filled the tub. Little Steve’s Ace on Central had the rubber gaskets that the big box hardware stores did not, thank you very much.

But then, dryness. Hallelujah. My friend had equally distressing issues with the electrical. First, a series of bright flashes because we had a bare wire touching the inside of the housing. He could hardly forgive himself for that. Then the GFCI switch kept tripping, so until we figured that out, I made the very safe decision to wire around it for now. Hell, for the first three years it worked the GFCI didn’t work either and I’m still alive ... so far. I think my friend feels he may have let down his entire profession for the tactics we used to breathe fire back into the dragon. No worries. Your name will never slip my lips in mixed company and I am forever in your debt.

And then, the moment of truth. To my delight it did not roar to life, as it used to before it finally died so long ago, but instead it quietly hummed to life. Air bubbles from empty jet lines in the tub glugged. It’s working. IT’S WORKING! For a short time I thought I was in trouble again. With the thermostat control at about 90 percent of maximum throttle, if you will, I was still only at 94 degrees. Uh oh. Now some people would have just cranked it to 100 percent to see what we got it to do. But not me. I couldn’t bear the thought of not having enough oomph to get us to 104, so I only went to 95 percent. If that didn’t do it, I still had one prayer left. But no prayer was needed. 95 was the sweet spot. We have 104! After nearly three years, it was time to go hot tubbing. And we did. And it was glorious.

Now older and wiser than the old Bryce, I have a great girl to go in with me all the time, so I had to promise no more nights of mysterious hot tub companions, which is fine. I have the one I want. Of course, I made the mistake of telling her about the promise to myself to never hot tub without working out first. I fear she will be holding me to that. I just finished laying out this issue of the paper. That counts as a workout, right?