Just Fixing the Plumbing

There are times when the single life rocks. Like when I want to eat onions on my burger and don't have to feel guilty about onion breath. Or when I want to watch 47 straight episodes of House Hunters when a football game is airing on another channel. Or when I really just want to go shopping (all day) on a Saturday.

There are times when the single life stinks. Like when the toilet breaks.

My friend Faith is one of those "I am woman, hear me roar" gals. I'm proud of her for that. But we firmly part ways there. I don't need to roar. I'd be much happier to have a roaring husband for whom I can cheer. :) I roar more out of necessity than desire. And this past weekend, when I got tired of the broken toilet, I decided it was necessary to roar.

I have two bathrooms in my house. But the one closest to my bedroom, one day, randomly stopped flushing. Naturally, I blamed Braeya right away. She has a fond affection for flushing that toilet. All day long. As though she doesn't have an entire BOX of toys to play with. As though I don't have a water bill. In desperation, I hid the toilet handle with a Tupperware onion holder (necessity is the mother of invention, no?) and thought I'd solved the problem. But then I wondered if maybe she'd outsmarted me. She does that sometimes.

So I opened the tank and found the chain had fallen off the "thingie." You know. The thingie. I found my enormous up-to-the-elbow pink rubber gloves and scrunched up my face while I dug around in the cold water for the chain. I rehooked it, put the lid back on and it worked!!

For one flush.

That's when I discovered the "thingie" was actually broken. It was old and after years of sitting in water, had seen fit to corrode and just flat out break. I moved the enormous up-to-the-elbow pink rubber gloves permanently into the bathroom so I could open the tank every time to pull the chain.

Then I got lazy and just started commuting to the other bathroom.

My poor Dad. It's not like I didn't call about the tree through the fence...and the three wheeled lawnmower...and the broken struts on the car. I asked about the toilet "thingie" and he said he'd fix it.

But he's busy and I'm impatient.

So Saturday night I made my way to Lowe's to the plumbing aisle. Nothing looked like the corroded mess in the toilet tank. So as I stood there gazing upon the wall of "thingies" - none of them CALLED a "thingie" - a nice Lowe's man had mercy on me and said, "Can I help you?"

I explained my problem and he pulled a "thingie" - apparently called a HANDLE - off the shelf. He handed it to me and then asked if my toilet handle was on the front or side of the toilet. Side. He snatched the thingie out of my hand and replaced it with the correct one. (Whew!) Then he even went so far as to tell me that the handle screwed on backwards from the normal rule of "rightie tightie, leftie loosie." (Whew again!)

I went home with one new toilet handle, a handful of instructions, and very little confidence. I locked myself in the bathroom, since plumber number two stood right outside the door scratching and begging to help, donned the pink rubber gloves, grabbed the wrench, and got to work.

Shockingly, five minutes later, I was done. DONE!! Nothing broke. Nothing fell. Nothing failed. It just...worked. Shut the front door.

So I'd just like to say -

Roar! :)