I couldnt sleep this evening so I spent some time on the computer and ran across this little essay I wrote a few years ago. Its based on a true story and, believe it or not, I only exaggerated a little. Some random thoughts from the outhouse. Speaking of the outhouse, have you looked in your toilet tank lately? Mine quit working at 1:05 AM last night. Why does it always break in the middle of the night or just when you realize that you’re 5 minutes late leaving for work? I removed the lid to see what the problem might be. I expected to see that the little red flapper thingy was stuck. Where the heck did the little red flapper thingy go? It looks like its been replaced by the $5,000,000 toilet from the space shuttle. There is more plumbing in there than there was in the entire Queen Mary. All I remember is a little round ball connected to a long thin wire. Ninety nine per cent of the time the only repair needed was a few quick “jiggles” of the handle. Well, with modern engineering techniques, I’m sure the new plumbing is actually an improvement so the “jiggle” technique should still work, right? Are you kidding me? The only thing jiggling was my, well never mind, this is supposed to be a family story. Only one thing to do, shut off the water and work on it in the morning. Of course that’s not going to work. The shut off valve starts to leak. Seventy years of modern plumbing technology and they still can’t make a simple shut off valve that doesn’t leak. So it’s off to the basement for a pipe wrench. The last time I used a pipe wrench was to hammer in a nail when I couldn’t find the hammer. So naturally I can’t find the pipe wrench. Whatever, I can always use a hammer to loosen the nut so that I can turn it with a pair of needle noose pliers. After ten minutes, and several skinned fingers, I realize that I’m going to have to go find the pipe wrench after all. Aha, it has to be in the shed with the other tools I had to have that I never use. Just ask my wife about those tools. No don’t, that’s another story. Ok, the shed is only five feet from the back door. Who needs a coat and shoes to go five feet. The snow is only 6 inches deep. I’m tough. No need to waste time looking for my coat and my $150 boots from Cabala’s that I had to have and haven’t worn for 3 winters. Yes, I know. That’s another story to ask Alma. Out the back door I run. Damn, it’s colder than I thought. Thank god it only takes three steps to get to the shed door. Luckily it’s never locked. Nuts! You guessed it, the door’s locked. Back in the house I go for the key. Where the hell is the key? Whew, I lucked out this time. It only took me 25 minutes to find it. Back out to the shed I run. After just another 10 minutes I get the frozen lock to open. Maybe I should have looked for those boots after all. I pull the door open, a full 8 inches. The damn snow is too deep to open the fricken door. No problem, I’ll get the snow shovel. Aw sh&%, the shovel is inside the shed. Time to get creative. I left my granddaughter’s snow disk on the front porch. That should make a good shovel don’t you think? All right, we’re cooking now. It’s only 2:25 AM and I’ve finally made it into the shed. Only one problem. It’s dark in there and I can’t see a F@%^&*# thing. Wait a minute. I know I put a flashlight right inside the door. Here it is. Oh, yea, I was supposed to get batteries last week. Screw it, change in plans. I’ll just put a bucket under the valve and worry about it in the morning. It’s morning now. In the light of day I can see that I’m going to need some parts. No problem. Home Depot is only 5 miles away. I can get there and be back in 15 minutes. Well, add 10 more for scraping the snow off the car. I finally get to home Depot. This is easy. There are only 3,289 different styles of toilet innards and exactly none of them look familiar. The Home Depot plumbing guy is a treasure trove of information. When I ask him for help he says to just replace it with the same stuff I had before. He looked at me like I was nuts when I told him they hadn’t made any new Space Shuttle toilet parts in 15 years. What an idiot. After reading a few hundred boxes I find one that says “universal toilet kit, will fit all brands of toilet tanks”. All righty now. I finally get back home and start reading the directions. Sure enough, it’s a universal kit. Says so right on the box in big bold letters , followed by a few teeny tiny letters that spell out “except”. Right again. I have the one toilet it won’t fit. Back to Home Depot. The toilet guy says I should have read the box. Where did I leave that pipe wrench? After calling a few hundred friends on his private Home Depot Sprint “push to talk” cell phone, (did I ever tell you how much I hate that stupid beep), he suggested that I get the “really” universal parts that cost only slightly more than my outboard motor. I told him what I thought he could “push to talk”. I think I beat the cops out of there by a good 30 seconds. Anyway, by now I’m thinking it might be more economical to mount my outboard motor in the tank. At least I would be able to use part of my boat this winter. I’m sure it develops enough oomph to flush the bowl. Surely Tim Taylor from Tool Time could help me rig up a good mount. Alma would probably have a fit though the first time it flushed the cat down the drain. Personally I don’t see a downside here but don’t tell her I said that. So back home I go. I disassemble the old insides. By the time I’m done, there is so much black crap spread out over the bathroom it looks like I’ve just finished rebuilding the motor on Don The Snake Prudhomme’s top fuel dragster. Time to read the directions. Let’s see. Here they are in Spanish, French, German, Swahili, and, last but not least, Aborigine. Where the hell is English. Oops, here they are. Instead of directions in English they have cute little drawings. I guess that’s in case we went to public school and can’t read. Well, at least I won’t have to go look for my glasses since the print is so small only a teenager could possibly see well enough to read them. Everything goes smoothly until Part One where they tell me to “place the flush control valve in the upright position just under the leak proof fixture making sure that the metal anti leak plate is touching the overflow gasket and under the fill line marked on the stem behind the ball valve”. WHAT!!! Screw this. This is why I have a job; so that I can afford to pay some overweight, poorly dressed, illegal alien $60 an hour to do something that I used to do in 5 seconds by “jiggling” the handle. Thank god I still have time to get to work so that I can start yelling at some of my customers. Oops sorry, I’m not allowed to fight with my customers, Only Verizon Wireless employees get to do that.
Posted on: Thu, 18 Dec 2014 06:48:45 +0000
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