Once upon a time, Maya’s water butt ran dry, and she decided to buy a hose in an attempt to keep her tiny garden alive.
What follows is the devastating story of one woman’s struggle to defeat the most basic of garden technology.
First Maya went to Homebase, where they sold her a hose, but had run out of the adaptors required to fit it to an indoor bathroom mixer tap, because Maya does not have an outdoor tap.
Maya went back a few days later to get the adaptor, and was told by the man in Homebase that the whole of Oxford had sold out, as everyone suddenly needs obscure mixer tap connectors, and he himself had driven all over Oxford to find one just yesterday. He assured her that Screwfix, Homebase, B&Q and all other hardware stores within a 10-mile radius had sold out of this one very specific piece of plumbing equipment. The last tap connector in Oxford was in fact in his car,as he was going to return it, would Maya like to purchase it?
Maya purchased it, and felt extremely weird buying obscure hard-to-find tap hardware from the boot of a man’s car in the Homebase car park on a Saturday morning.
Maya then attempted to connect up the hose and adaptor to the bathroom sink. The connector did not function as advertised, despite trying all of the rubber washers provided, and Maya and her bathroom got very, very wet. The garden however stayed bone dry during this exercise.
Then Maya’s colleague lent her an alternative mixer-tap-connector-type fitting, which did fit her tap and did not spray water all over the house. Success! Sadly the joy was extremely short-lived as the hose did not fit into the new connector, and the garden remained unwatered for several more days.
Maya said some rude words and wished she had trained as a water and sanitation engineer.
Then Maya ordered a new connector online from a very obscure tap website, and a week later when it arrived, she took all of the parts to a different local hardware store to request help, as the hose had not come with any kind of instruction manual.
Maya felt extremely stupid explaining to the man in the shop that she needed a manual to operate a garden hose.
The man in the new shop explained patiently that Maya had somehow bought a hose that was a “non-standard gauge” also known as “not wide enough” and that was why it didn’t fit the connectors.
The man sold Maya a new hose, that was the correct gauge and width, and patiently showed her how to connect the various parts of the hose together.
Maya then hauled all of the pieces back to her house to start again.
Maya discovered that the spray nozzle on the hose needs to be pressed firmly down in order for the water to come out, otherwise the pressure of water backs up and explodes all over her bathroom. Maya realised she cannot turn the tap on and run faster than the rate of water back out to the garden to press the handle before the tap explodes in the bathroom. Maya tried multiple options for wedging the handle closed, or removing the handle and re-inserting it once the water is flowing, all of which resulted in a flood in the bathroom. She also could not hold the hose down inside the bathroom thus running through the living room with the hose on, spraying everything in her wake.
Maya has realised that watering the garden requires a professional engineer and at least 3 people to monitor the different components in case of disaster.
Maya is also now sure that when she finally gets the water flowing in the correct direction, out of the hose, all of her plants will be dead and a hosepipe ban will be announced.
Maya hates garden hoses and tap connectors with a fiery rage that is not normal.
