Oops

As soon as the weather was warm enough for us to tolerate being outside for awhile, the kids & I did a spring clean-up project in the yard. Stephen usually works with us, but this year he was busy with nursing school. How hard could it be? Rake up dead leaves, throw away items no longer needed. Easy, right? Well, Kaitlyn was raking up leaves by the backyard fence, when she found a "thingy." She asked me what is was & if we needed it. I have never seen it, so I told her to toss it. We finished the job & we felt pleased with our clean tidy yard.
That was in March. The weather has been quite wet this spring & there hasn't been a need to turn on the sprinklers until last week. So last week, Stephen went outside to do his yearly maitenence check on the sprinklers-- make sure they weren't clogged or broke. Well, he went to turn them on & it wouldn't work. After investigating, he found that the filter was missing. He came in, described what it looked like and asked if anyone had seen it. Kaitlyn said, "yes, sounds like the thingy I threw away." Well, he was right in the middle of finals, so we decided it could wait another week. After finals, he went to the hardware store to buy another filter, they didn't sell it. We called several stores without any luck. Finally, we learned that it could only be bought direct from the manufactuer. So we went online & ordered the part for....... $126!!!!! Oh my, what a expensive "thingy" we threw away!
So the moral of this lesson is, ask your husband FIRST before you throw "thingys" away! You live & learn and this seems to be a lesson I have to learn over and over again. Good thing I married a man with a lot of patience.