Monday, May 15, 2006

Flushing with Pride

Dr Plumber, report to Home Depot, STAT!

Ah, emergency plumbing, how I both love and revile you. Last night, in particular, with the love and revilement. Why? Because the toilet that I'll be chucking out following the July bathroom renovation has developed a slow fill problem. In order to combat the issue, last night at around 6:30PM, I got me a screwdriver and started adjusting the screw that controls the water level in the tank on the float (no, not THAT kind of toilet related float. You have a dirty mind).

Turn, turn, SNAP, what the hell?

15 year old plastic breaks far to easily, I think. And I was faced with no longer a slow, continual fill, but a balls-to-the-wall rushing continual fill.

Excellent. If by excellent you mean GoodGodDamn. And I do.

I dropped to the floor, and turned off the water supply to the commode, and ran to call Home Depot to see if they were still open. Thankfully, those suckers know that suckers like me tend to plan badly and attempt repairs at stupid times, and had set store hours to accommodate. And so I ran over, bought a new float mechanism, and returned to my home, sitting on the floor, reading the installation directions.

1) Turn off water and empty tank. Dude, already done.
2) Uninstall old float mechanism. With a little muscle and a monkey wrench, check!
3) Mop up all the water that streamed onto the floor from its hiding place in the tank when you were trying to empty it. Ha, great. Check.
4) Install new float mechanism. Check.
5) Turn on water. Done, and done.
6) Flush toilet far too many times for the following reasons: too much pride at having performed a sucessful surgery; paranoia that none of the parts have been screwed in tightly enough, resulting in flooding fear. To date, flooding has been successfully averted.
7) Shake fist at toilet for the need to fix something that will be smashed to pieces in a few short months.

Me = MASTER PLUMBER.

The end.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Holy crap, Melissa. I am in awe. I would have given up right around paragraph 1, the part where you "got you a screwdriver". Huzzah!

Melissa said...

I blush. Or, pretending that I'm pretending to be a francophone in Montreal, Je rougis.

Confidential to Ro, the last time I brought someone into my house to fix something (broken lock! Locked out of house! Good goddamn!) I ended up going out on a really bad date with the guy.

DIY home improvement is really just a smokescreen for avoiding bad dates.

Anonymous said...

Melissa - my respect for you deepens daily. My hat is off to you and your diy smokescreen.