Taking the ole Emergency Fund out for a spin

Seems that most of our "emergency" problems center around our cars.  But apparently the house decided that it felt like the neglected child, and decided to throw a tantrum last night.

Or at least the kitchen faucet did.

First off....I have to admit that I walked in on the tail end of this issue.  G-man was the lucky recipient of the wrath.  I walked in to the house, and G-man is on the floor mopping up water, water all over the counter, sink.  OK....what happened? 

As he was shutting off the water in the sink, the hot water handle blew off, and a geyser of water shot up.  He was smart enough to grab a nearby pot to cover the geyser while he ran to the basement to shut off the water (he forgot that we had shut off valves under the sink....but hey, I probably would have done the same thing....minus the pot....I probably would have continued to have a geyser).

Upon further investigation.....here is the problem:

See all those little pieces?  Yeah....that isn't supposed to happen.  This might explain the dripping faucet that I have been asking G-man to fix for weeks.  But alas.  So the dinner dishes didn't quite get done last night (no dishwasher here...and no water in the sink....thus, a big ole pile of dishes waiting for me).

So bright and early this morning, G-man set out to try and fix this.  After trips to 2 large home improvement stores, he was told he needed to go to a plumbing supply store.  They said that basically we had a "cheap" faucet (it was a Price Pfster) and that we would have to replace the whole faucet (the piece that broke could be replaced, but the same problem would eventually happen).

So now....here is our new faucet.

This totally blew the plan for the day (powerwashing the fence).  But having a working kitchen sink was more important.

We were able to take the money out of our Emergency Fund, so no major debt damage done.