I planted myself in front of the kitchen sink and ran the faucet, turning the “hot” valve open all the way, and waited…and waited for hot water to travel through my pipes.

After five minutes, I concluded that the flow into my sink couldn’t defrost a Tupperware tub of soup from my freezer.

I pulled open the doors of my utility closet and looked at my water heater. No green light flashed from the bottom. I’m not sure how it could have happened, but it seemed that the pilot went out.

I imagined technology had made fumbling around with a match obsolete and that directions were printed on a label somewhere on my forty-gallon tank, if not featured on a YouTube video, but I couldn’t bring myself to try. I wanted help.

I was afraid of doing something wrong and triggering a chain of unintended consequences. I never had to light a pilot for a water heater before.

Living in an era when Caitlyn Clarke surpassed Pistol Pete Maravich’s NCAA basketball scoring title, I am long passed thinking of such tasks as the domain of people with Y chromosomes.

I don’t consider this kind of household maintenance task beneath me. I just have no experience.

I used to say, “I come from a long line of people who hire OTHER people to do this sort of thing.”  It’s not genetics so much as habit, and, perhaps, how my brain is wired.

As a single woman, very wobbly on a ladder, I’m just not comfortable performing even the simplest home repair. I had to think of who I could call.

Two of my more helpful neighbors were out of town. Fortunately, I’ve got a guy.

Bob lives down the street. Mostly retired, he does small jobs at his building and around the neighborhood, like clearing fallen leaves off sewer covers after a heavy rain.

He’s helped me before.  For a modest fee, he’s put plastic around my sliding glass door before winter and carried canisters of propane up to my second floor deck at the start of grilling season.

But he’s a funny guy.

I dare not try to set an appointment with him. I can’t question his methods. I have to catch him when he’s open. He likes to talk.  I’m afraid of getting into politics. I suspect we don’t see eye to eye on many things.

He’s not interested in expanding our relationship. I invited him and his girlfriend over for dinner last fall to express gratitude for helping me. Somehow, he seemed to forget the date.

I called him fifteen minutes after I expected to hear my doorbell ring, after putting together an old-school dinner (meatloaf, mashed potatoes, buttered carrots) to find out that he already slipped out of his Carhartt hoodie for the day.

I called him and explained that I suspected the pilot for my water heater went out. I didn’t smell gas and did not think it was an emergency but that I would really appreciate his expertise re-lighting it. I must have caught him when he wasn’t otherwise occupied.

“Now, I don’t want you to set off an explosion in your building. I’ll come up your back door in about twenty minutes.”

Upon entering through my kitchen, he tousled my dog’s fur under her neck and reported that she likes the spot. Then, he quickly announced that he didn’t smell any gas, although I covered this in my phone call. I showed him the water heater. He slowly got down on the floor next to it, like getting ready to play with a baby.

Using the flashlight on his phone, he read the directions. Slowly and deliberately he got the gas started again. In a few minutes, the familiar green light was flashing at the bottom of the tank. At first, he refused money. He finally accepted a Jackson I slipped him without much fanfare.

He announced expectations that hot water would flow again in ninety minutes and texted me three or four times that night asking if I had hot water yet.  (It took most of the night.)

Not on call or available 24/7, still, I was glad I could say, “I’ve got a guy,” somebody with the practical skills I lacked, someone concerned about my welfare, someone who asked nothing of me, someone I didn’t feel the need to agree with, even on big issues, but could accept his caring motivation.

Accepting a gift from someone simply paying it forward is no small thing.