How many PCVs does it take to make a hookah work properly? We may never know. But what we do know is that four ordinarily-clever PCVs placed an emergency call to another PCV, and that still didn’t do the trick. What’s up with that? Where's the hookah reference manual?

But wait, it gets worse. My refrigerator has quit working, again. All too often I’ve* returned home to a frigo that has* quit working during my absence. How quickly grows a moldy mess inside. Believe me, not a pretty sight. Furthermore, getting the bloody frigo to work again after being without power has become a serious issue.  I don’t rest when the frigo isn’t cold. I fret. It messes with my Zen place . . . or something like that.

So I left the frigo plugged-in last week when I was in Ouaga . . . despite the fact that the electricity had been* off for the two days prior to my departure. When I returned home, still no electricity; but something had* worked at some point because I had* water partially frozen. However, since my return on Sunday . . . nothing, nyet, nada, zip, bupkis [A Fish Called Wanda reference]. We are not happy [Lawrence of Arabia reference].  I’m fairly alarmed here [Jurassic Park reference]. I genuinely believe that it wants to work . . . it's trying. Where's the bloody reference guide?

Rusty used to say, give me a tampon and some duct tape and I’ll build you an airplane. Or maybe that’s what I used to say about Rusty. In any event, I'm suddenly so MacGyver-y. Yes . . . despite the hookah fiasco, and despite the fact that I cannot identify the reason that my frigo won't work, perhaps some of Rusty's MacGyver ingenuity has rubbed off on me.

Today I built a better hand-washing station. I got the idea after being faced with the eventuality of having* to make the BF/PC version. Now the pathetic part is that I took a bidon (that's a jerry can to you non-BF PCVs) and all the bits to my bureau, ready to struggle drilling a hole with my trusty multi-tool’s knife . . . and then Yaya stopped me. Talk about MacGyver-y. Took me and the bits and the bidon to the quincailliere (is that a really word?), where a nice fellow punched a hole right through the lid. So that's what happens at a quincailliere. I felt like an idiot. Lord, what fools these mortals be! [Midsummer-Night's Dream reference]. I made this handy-dandy reference for other PCVs . . . or in case you're bored at home.

Perhaps if I worked on more MacGyver-y projects I'd smoke less and wouldn't worry about cherry hookah. Or perhaps if I napped more. Isn't jerry can terribly prejudiced?  *Will I ever again write a sentence with any conjugation of the verbs to be or to have without thinking: What kind of crazy language has fourteen (14!) verb conjugations, plus the impératif? Who was the lunatic who thought up that?! And what's up with that MacGyver hair style? We can only speculate.