The Slice: Patience key to trickle down

Whether I have an obsessive compulsive disorder is a question I can’t really answer.

My academic training was in the liberal arts and keg appreciation, not psychology.

But I can tell you this: It’s unlikely that many people around here fret more than I do about getting their faucet-drip just right.

You might say I’m persnickety. I prefer to think of it as having exacting standards.

OK, nobody wants frozen pipes. That’s a given.

So many of us employ the tactic of letting the water run just a little as a way to stave off the need to call in plumbers wielding blowtorches. That’s pretty basic.

But I suspect that my devotion to getting that drip just right sets me apart from most Inland Northwesterners coping with winter. You see, I have developed a touch that puts me in mind of safecrackers or bomb defusers.

I don’t just casually turn the water on a bit and call it good. Oh, no. I have rightly come to regard this as a task requiring precision and delicacy.

If you move the handle just enough to prompt a slow drip, the water will stop the moment you turn your back. Trust me. The gods of pipe protection are mischievous.

But if you set it so that a robust little flow emerges, you can wind up wasting an Olympic pool’s worth of water. That’s money down the drain.

So what’s ideal?

You’d probably have to ask a plumber. For instance, should your drip be a medley of hot and cold?

For my taste, I like a thin, continuous stream. I prefer that to a plop-plop-plop for two reasons.

One, an unbroken stream seems less likely to stop altogether than a steady drip. And secondly, when your home is quiet – say, at bedtime – the telltale sound of a dribbling faucet can make you feel like you’re trapped in an Edgar Allan Poe verse.

Winter can be challenging enough without staring at the ceiling at midnight and hearing …

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a dripping.

Different sink fixtures require different hands-on manipulations. Still, it’s all about feel, and patience.

Me? I don’t mind if it takes a while to do the job right. I’d rather spend three minutes arriving at the perfect trickle than worry that a haphazardly arrived-at intermittent drip will dry up.

Occasionally, of course, people will actually want to use the sink in question. There’s really no choice but to let them, and then reset the stream.

After all, you don’t want your own family thinking you’re crazy – especially if you are.

•Today’s Slice question: Which newcomers to our area are about to experience their first white Christmas?