Butano....

We heat our water and cook on our stove with gas (butane) delivered to our apartment by the "butano man" (okay, this is really just a guy who works for Repsol, the Spanish gas company). Our hot water heater runs out every three to four weeks. Our stove gas had been going strong since we moved into the apartment in October. We were worried that we might run out during our cooking extravaganza on Thanksgiving, but it kept going....until this week.

It ran out Friday afternoon while Erin was trying to make soup. We called to have the tank replaced, but they don't do deliveries Friday afternoons. We had plenty in our hot water tank, so I decided to try to switch the two. It's a really easy mechanism to get the hose off the tank, but when I tried to get the semi-full hot water tank to attach to the kitchen hose, I couldn't.

Cecilia and I spent at least 20 minutes trying to attach it (this is after I had already spent 30 minutes trying it myself...and googling possible solutions).

Christine came over to use our internet and popped the thing on in two seconds. She did the same thing Cecilia and I had been doing; she just seemed to have the right finesse or something. We were pretty pissed that we couldn't get this to work, but she did it instantly. (We were also really happy to have our stove back.)

Anyway, bright and early Saturday morning (we're talking 8:15 a.m.), the butano man came to our rescue and brought us another tank to attach to our hot water heater so our apartment could go back to normal. At least we're getting better at guessing when that one is going to run out (unlike that time Cecilia was partway through a shower....). Needless to say, all butane tanks are staying attached. Although, next time we run out on the hot water heater, I'm going to try again....I'll just leave the functioning tank alone.