I'm not as active as a volunteer firefighter as I used to be, because over the years my body has been beat down pretty good ... by doing yard work.

Other than a couple of back injuries, I've never really been hurt on that hazardous job. Firefighting, I mean. Yard work, now that's the task that leaves me moaning on the ground, and not in a good way.

 

You ever try to mow with this stuff on?

 

With firefighting, you wear tons of protective gear, which changes the most likely medical problems to heat stroke and heart attacks. With yard work, you wear shorts and a tank top, and in some cases hold a can of beer. In addition, with firefighting you tend to have the topic of safety going on in your mind:

"Say, I'm in zero visibility, crawling over a burned out floor, shoving a metal pike into the ceiling when I don't know if the electricity is still on." It's just an example. I've never pulled a ceiling while crawling on the floor, so don't sweat it.

When I'm doing yard work, I have other topics on my mind:

"I wonder how long I could let this grow before the lawn police arrest me?"

An action shot.


But the biggest reason for this seeming paradox is that fire just doesn't give a darn about me, while Mother Nature hates me.

Oh, yeah. Mother Nature is a vindictive bit ... being. She hears me complain. I complain a lot.

"It's too cold." "I hate bugs." "That's not rain: It's a cloud of pollen!"

Once, as I was mowing in the front yard, one of our trees bent down and beaned me with a limb. It had nothing to do with me not paying attention. It's also the only time in my adult life that I did a full somersault.

But recently I learned a new twist: My furniture is in cahoots with Mother Nature. Much of it is wood, after all, an increasingly expensive resource that doesn't just grow on trees. I'm always shoving furniture around, banging into it, and of course sitting on it. This axes of evil (see what I did, there?) recently tried hard to do me in.

I was mowing in the back yard, near the lilacs I've horribly neglected. If you were a lilac and your caretaker doesn't trim you or keep other trees from growing up in the middle of you, wouldn't you be upset? I don't know, either.

As I pushed the mower around one of the bushes, it reached it's driest, deadest branch out and clobbered me in the arm.

The evidence.

 

The above photo is my arm, just so you know. Now that I think of it, maybe this is what the far side of my forearm always looks like--I usually can't see it. But no, my wife takes great joy in pouring peroxide on my fresh wounds, and when they're old I don't scream like that.

The very next day, I noticed the TV remote was missing. (Just hang on, it's connected.) No big deal: It can always be found by sweeping a hand between the cushion and the inside of the couch's side. We put it on the arm, it slides down, and Bob's your uncle.

(That's just an expression: I don't mean to offend anyone who actually has an Uncle Bob.)

Now, the couch is only a few years old, and we really like it. It has two recliners, something that's always seemed like rich luxury to me, but boy, am I glad for them--especially on bad back days. But when you recline and unrecline and plop down on something all the time, there's bound to be some wear and tear.

As near as I can tell, a nail popped loose and just hung there, between the side and the cushion. Waiting. For me.

I swept my hand down there, just like I always do. What happens when something suddenly stabs into your hand? You withdraw your hand, don't you? Which I did, but the nail had already embedded itself into my finger. I'm pretty sure it bounced off the inside of a fingernail.

I'll spare you the photos.

Have you ever bled so much that you couldn't stop it even with pressure, elevation, and cold? It was just a finger, for crying out loud, which is exactly how I cried. Out loud. Luckily no one was home, but that meant I had to do the peroxide thing myself, and it's not nearly as much fun that way.

Two injuries in two days, on the same arm. And what swung that nail out to grab me? That's right: the couch's wooden frame. I got even by bleeding on it, but still. Also, I hurt my back again jumping halfway across the living room while waving my hand wildly, and later I had to clean up that blood.

Luckily I'm used to cleaning up my own blood.

Don't doubt the connection: The truth is out there ... and in there. Mother Nature is out to get me, and there's nowhere to hide. Today the couch--tomorrow the bed.

There's a thought to sleep on.

When I'm going to give blood, I prefer advanced notice.

 

http://markrhunter.com/
https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"


 

(Note: I just spent another weekend going through this all over again. It's a good thing I wrote this blog before that, because I've lost all sense of humor since then.) 

 

There came a certain point the other day, when I dropped to the ground in exhaustion and told my wife, "I don't think I can do this."

Get your mind out of the gutter. Or maybe not, since I'm talking about routing out a sewer line.

You may call it a sewer snake, or a router, or go with the trademarked Roto Rooter, but any way you look at it, it's a crap job. Despite my well-known lack of mechanical ability, I've used routers numerous times, back when roots were growing in my sewer. (By the way, the stuff you flush down that's called "root killer" is really, I suspect, root fertilizer.) But several years ago a true professional came in, put a giant trench in my back yard, and replaced the old ceramic sewer line with brand new, professional grade plastic. I've had no problem since.

Until last weekend.

And it always happens on a weekend, in order to maximize your troubles. Emily and I were preparing for an author appearance, and I headed to the basement for a folding table. There it was: two pools of water over the lowermost drains.

Indoor swimming pools are only fun if you can control what kind of water goes with them.

Ah, but now the good news: While replacing the line, the pro guy put in something called a cleanout, and its purpose is to give you a place to put in the snake/router/out-of-control-metal-tentacle-monster if you need to clear a blockage.

The router I rented weighed six thousand pounds, but it was way easier using it outside than trying to work it through a drain in the basement. I put fifty feet of writhing, hand-smashing sewer snake into the line. It did absolutely nothing.

Which is pretty much standard with my home maintenance jobs.

So, Emily and I hoisted the whole 6,000 pound unit down the outside stairs to the basement where, no matter how much I tried, the snake wouldn't fit into the hole. ("That's what he said." I know you're thinking it.) Then we hoisted the whole 6,000 pound unit back up the basement stairs and into the back of our SUV.

Have you ever heard a car scream? It's not pretty.

But the place I rented it from (Doc's Hardware, downtown Albion), traded me a smaller unit for no extra charge. That one, with maybe a bit of effort, did go into the basement drain. After about twenty-five feet of pretending I was my house's doctor giving it a colonoscopy (now it knows how I feel), the router bit came out with a substantial amount of yuck clinging to it.

It sounds so much easier than it was. I'm not just talking about the pushing and pulling, and the invention of new curse words. To get the router bit in I had to lay on the floor, stick my hand into the drain, and physically force it around a bend in the pipe. Yeah. You know what was in that drain? Yes. Yes it was.

This is why, during our after action review, Emily poured two gallons of peroxide and then three gallons of alcohol on my hand. You see, so much skin had been skinned (thus the term) that, had it been broken (as at one point I thought it had), the doctors could have examined my bones without doing x-rays. Emily was, quite rightly, concerned about infection. (I mean, we do know where it's been.) She was also rightly concerned about the neighbors calling 911 after all the screaming, but I suppose they're used to me by now.

I felt like I was victim #3 on an episode of Game of Thrones.

(Note: We need to buy more peroxide and alcohol, and maybe drinking alcohol, too.)

I don't remember at what point I told Emily that I wasn't sure I could do this. It was fairly early in the process, and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm in my fifties, and last time I routed a sewer line I was in my forties. I don't feel any different--except for when I try something like this.

But we did do it, and it took less than twenty-four hours. (Note: The first time.) As of this moment, only two days later, I can flex my hand again, the scrape on my abdomen has stopped oozing, and I can use my arms as long as I don't lift them over the level of the scrape on my abdomen.

I'm going to call that a win.

 

 It really wasn't that bad, see?


 

Our car just hit 100,000 miles--and its fifth birthday, at the same time. I've become a big believer in preventative maintenance, so I brought it in for all that hundred thousand mile stuff, including a change out of the cabin air filter that I didn't realize cars had until I researched it. Hey, we all have allergies--even the dog.

 

Spark plugs, radiator flush, tire rotation, oil change, fluid checks--We have a lot of driving to do this summer, and I want to take care of the car that's taking care of us. Especially since we can't afford a second one. Some of you might remember that a few years ago our Ford Focus fell victim to a young gentlemen who thought the answer to being sun-blinded in heavy traffic was to cross his finger and hit the gas.

So we bought a Ford Focus, which we love even more. But five years and six digits is middle aged by car standards, so we had to give it a colonoscopy, check its cholesterol level, and start it on some acid reflux medicine.

Turns out we also need new brakes. This is no surprise--so far as I can tell, the brakes have never been replaced on the Escape, which we bought when it was about two years old. Anyone who's ever done a lot of driving on the interstate knows that, no matter how defensively you drive, you're going to have to work those brakes! It's almost as bad as driving local roads at dusk and dawn, when the deer are out.

Also, I recently had to brake for a turkey. 

 This is not a complaint, because let's be honest: I've been going through my own 100,000 mile problems in recent years. I've had to get my fluids checked, some of my spinal column needs replaced, and my paint job has been fading. Sometimes the car and I sit around, sipping Metamucil, and complaining about kids these days and their oversized pickup truck tires.

Besides, it's an incentive to push my writing career harder. According to my estimation, to pay for this work I need to sell at least three hundred books, or four thousand short stories, or take a part time job washing cars at the dealership.

Or I could do all the car maintenance work myself ... but I'm not sure our medical insurance would cover that.

I heard a noise last summer and looked around the corner to find a truck parked in my back yard.

 

 

 

A lot of the utility workers from around here are down in the southeast right now, trying to repair all the infrastructure damage done by Hurricane Michael. They're putting in some long, long hours, a long way from home.

 

On more normal days these are the guys who keep my computer and TV running, not to mention, oh, lights and heat. Speaking as a person who once, as a lad, tried to dig a piece of bread out of the toaster with a fork, I wouldn't take their job for love or money. (The toaster won.)

Remember when your utilities were gas, electric, water, and maybe phone, and the idea of having the world at your fingertips and a screen in your hands was something for rich people or science fiction characters?

No, me neither. But I got a taste of first world stone age when our internet went out at the beginning of this month. How great is it that Mediacom convinced me to get my home phone service through them, then told me I'd be out for two weeks after both it and our internet went dark? It's so great, it makes me want to just injure my back and lay there, unable to use the internet or talk on the phone, or move. That's how great it was.

And that's the irony of it, that it failed at a time when I was flat on my back and could have used it most.

(Truth in advertising: It actually hurt to lay flat on my back. I was in more of a fetal position.) 

 But there's a bright side: By the time the pain eased enough for me to do anything at all, I worked on writing or--wait for it--reading. In the week and a half or so we've gone without, I wrote a submission outline for my newest novel, and got halfway through a final polish on the manuscript. I'm also halfway through the first novel I've read all summer.

That's the good news. The bad news is that when I do do internet stuff (and we all know there's a lot of online do-do), I often ended up using my phone. I didn't think twice about it until I got a notice that, 25% into the month, I'd used up 75% of my data. For you older people, that's like gossiping on a party line until the other users start yelling for you to get off the phone.

That's why I'm stealing the internet you're getting this from right now. *ahem* Borrowing. It's also why I'm not online as much as usual, even though I'm still limited in other things I can do. First world problems, yeah, but I'm paying for my first world stuff with money I earned by helping other people with their first world problems.

And when I called the people providing me with that first world service, who out of fairness I shouldn't name, they said a serviceman would be right there, in about two weeks.

Thank you, Mediacom. Thankyouverymuch.

Basically I'm telling you this because the service guy is supposed to be here today (they moved it up three days, so why am I complaining?) I don't want to vent on the repair guy, because it isn't his fault, so I'm venting on you. There. Vented.

How things go today will determine what kind of mood I'm in tomorrow ... but either way my smart phone won't be very smart for the rest of the month, and I suspect M******m isn't going to reimburse me for that.

"I feel like something's just crushing me." Kidding! This was taken after my sinus surgery.

 

Note: I wrote most of this piece a month ago, put it into a draft, and immediately forgot about it. I decided to post it now because a few days ago I mentioned in passing that I was attempting home maintenance, and there have since been several inquiries about me at local hospitals. I'm still here, I survived, and thanks to my brother my home once again has running water.
 

The thing about a water heater is that it's supposed to heat water--hence the name--and then hold aforementioned heated water until you let it out. If the water gets out before you want it to, that's a problem. It's also a problem if the heated water isn't heated, but never mind.

So when I saw water leaking out of the bottom of my water heater, it naturally occurred to me that I might have a problem. And what does one do in modern times when one has a problem? That's right: consult the internet.

The internet told me that the water might be coming from the drain valve, in which case I might be able to cap it. (It wasn't.) Or, it might be coming from anywhere else, in which case both I and my wallet were screwed. Further consultation revealed that "screwed" was not meant literally, so my collection of mismatched screwdrivers would not help me. Nor would the jar full of screws I've found in random places, and always wondered what they were supposed to be holding together.

Further, I discovered drinking a screwdriver would help, but only temporarily.

The internet told me my water heater is approaching its normal lifespan anyway, and there's no use crying over spilled water. However, it also told me that if the leak isn't too bad, and the water isn't damaging anything, I could go on using the heater for years more before it finally conks out.

(I suspect it was people on the internet who said that, rather than the internet itself. Then again, keep feeding information into a computer system and sooner or later it's going to figure stuff out for itself--we've all seen those movies.)

This idea suits me. (The "keep using it" idea, not "the internet's taking over" idea, which terrifies me.) "Ignore the problem and maybe it'll go away" is a creed I've lived by when it comes to home repairs, or anything mechanical. Yes, that may have led to a tire falling off my car, but no creed is perfect.

On a quite definitely related note, I also discovered that the valve to shut off water to my heater is corroded so badly that it's no longer a valve. It's just a scaly green blob with no logical function, rather like a politician's brain. I can't change the heater without shutting off water to the entire house, and the house is heated with water. If that's not an excuse to put the whole thing off until cold weather ends, I don't know what is. What could possibly go wrong?

 So I put it off until May, and started work three days before our town's spring cleanup day, when I could put the old water heater out. Three days later I was indeed able to take the old heater out, just in time. At that point I didn't have any water, hot or cold, and due to a pressure surge I'd also lost my  washing machine. But hey, I got rid of that old water heater.

I could go into more detail, but it's a little hard to type with these burned fingers and the strained shoulder. On the other hand, the sore toe and damaged knees make for a good excuse to catch up on episodes of Fargo. Thanks to my brother everything's up and running except for the washing machine, which was at least three decades old and bought used, anyway.

My home, which was also bought used, is always looking for new and original ways to beat me down. I suppose when it's time to install the new washing machine, it'll find a new way.

This is where my home maintenance projects usually go.

When I opened my Blogger account this morning, I found that all my visitor stats had disappeared. (They popped back into existence a few hours later, having apparently undergone some kind of existential crisis. I've been there.)

One would be tempted to blame Blogger, or the internet in general. However, in the last two days I've broken a brand new pipe wrench, a washing machine, a copper water pipe, a vent hood, my back, and the entire water supply to my house. Can't speak for the new water heater: I haven't advanced to the point of igniting the pilot.

So for the moment I'm not prepared to blame anyone else for stuff going wrong in my  vicinity.

On an all-too-related note, you might not be hearing from me for a few days.

ozma914: (Dorothy and the Wizard)
( Apr. 26th, 2017 03:52 pm)

A certain percentage of the population will insist that if they can do something, it's easy for anyone to do.

Example: I take a woodworking class in high school (because an industrial arts class was required and I wasn't any good at getting out of that kind of thing). "It's easy. Anyone can use a saw and sander, and make a bookcase."

Well, I have a dozen bookcases, and I didn't make a single one of them. I also have an Incomplete in woodworking class.

Keeping a small engine going is easy, with just a little training and practice. Tell that to the crew of the passing 747 who found a piece of my mower blade and a spark plug embedded in a wing after the infamous Exploding Lawn Mower Incident of 1998. I don't care how much the federal investigator claims it broke the laws of physics.

So when I tell you I'm a little nervous about installing our new water heater, I don't want to hear any of that, "ah, it's easy" crap. The E.R. has a special "ah, it's easy" treatment room. It's right next to the "hold my beer and watch this" ward.

My wife spent the better part of a day researching the best replacement for our heater, which recently went from a small leak to rinsing the basement floor, and wasn't that nice of it to help keep the place clean? Then we drove to the store, and discovered it would fit into our Ford Escape with exactly half an inch to spare. Then came getting it out of the SUV and down the basement steps, which make two sharp right angle turns: One at the inside of an L shaped wall, one at the basement door. Picture it. The new heater weighs 130 pounds, which is still less then the piece of my lawn mower they found inside a barn six miles from my lawn.

And that was still the easiest part of the job, although my back denies it. The rest comes later this week, when I have to remove the old water heater and install the new one. The instructions are pretty plain, step-by-step, and involve electricity and natural gas.

But not to worry: Someone will show up to help, they always do. No one really wants to see my house blow up. That I know of.

I'm sure it'll work out fine. Or if you don't hear from me later, look for a video similar to this one: 

https://youtu.be/Cv178a60Ypg

 

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

 

 

I love January! Said no one, ever.

 

Okay, some people actually do love winter, which just goes to show you: Northern Indiana needs better mental health screening. I used to take part in winter activities, but I was young then, and young people just haven’t learned that being miserable isn’t an adventure.

 

When I was a kid, I loved sledding, snowball fights, and not having to pay the utility bills. Well, I liked them … I never did warm up all that much to winter. Then, one day when I was about fourteen, I came in from building a snow block fort to discover my hands and toes had themselves become snow blocks. My cheeks had taken on a white, Frosty-like sheen.

 

My face cheeks. Get your mind out of my insulated underwear.

 

Thawing out involved a process not unlike being stabbed with a thousand white-hot pins and needles, and from that time on I couldn’t stay in cold weather for long before the affected parts started to feel like they’d been shotgunned full of rock salt. It took all the fun out of it.

 

Today, my favorite wintertime activities involve a book and a cup of hot chocolate. So January does have an advantage: I can catch up on my reading. But that doesn’t really make up for the gas bill.

 

 

Last year, here in Indiana, we had a return to real Indiana winters. You know, the kind of stuff that leads on The Weather Channel. The kind of weather only snow plow drivers and ice fisherman like, and see above about mental health. For many previous years, our weather has largely just been miserable, instead of awful. But now we’ve returned to the kind of weather that led to the sale of T-shirts proclaiming “I survived the Blizzard of ‘78” … and if you had one of those shirts, you know “survived” wasn’t an exaggeration. )

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

 

            With the purchase of a brand new lawn mower, only the third new one I’ve ever bought, I said goodbye to my conservative lawn mower.

            (So named because it stopped working whenever it tilted to the left.)

            It had a good, long run. In fact, the conservative lawn mower wasn’t one of the three bought brand new—I got it used, just like my house and my cars. If it’s good enough for Pontiac/Ford/Dodge/Buick/Chevy/Nissan/Ford again, it’s good enough for Briggs and Stratton. (The less said about Renault, the better.)

           

 

I had to exchange the plug on my old dryer with the plug on my new one, which I bought for $25 at my mom's church. In other words, electrical work. There were plenty of online guides on how to do it, but here's the rub: They all explained how to replace a three point plug with a four point plug. But the dryer I bought is actually older than the one it's replacing -- I had to replace the newer plug with the older plug, not the other way around.

 

Very, very carefully, I took the old new plug apart, matched it with the connections on the new old plug, and put them together exactly as the old new one had been put in when it was new, not old. I double and triple checked, and then, making sure not to touch the dryer or any metal as I did so, I plugged the unit back in.

 

No sparks, explosion, fire. No singed mustache.Happy and incredulous after only a few hour's of work, I turned the dryer on to make sure it would actually dry stuff.

 

Nothing happened.

 

No power. No idea why.

 

And so, I would like to announce that I will be hanging up everything to dry from now on. Clothes, sheets, towels, whatever. If the Amish can do it, so can I. If you happen to be Amish, tell me how you manage. Also, tell me what you're doing online.

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

 

            Last week, I described how preparing to fix my home’s only toilet turned into a half day ordeal. The rest of the day went pretty much the way you’d expect:

 

            After staring at the instructions for half an hour and muttering to myself, I figured out how to get the new piece of toilet innards in. (At about that point my wife popped her head in, and I went on a ten minute diatribe that basically consisted of “Easy! They said it was easy!” along with some hysterical laughter.)

            The new piece had to be reconnected to the water line, and the instructions gave four different ways to do that, depending on the incoming line. Flared? Flanged? Screwed? Something was screwed, all right. (Later I would mispronounce the word “flanged” to the guy at the hardware store, even though I knew how to pronounce it. My head was that screwed—and nailed—by then.) My setup, I determined, was flanged.

            That took the “already installed” washer, which I’d thrown aside because it had deteriorated to a little ring of black pond scum. The rubber washer that came with the new parts, which took me ten minutes to separate from the other washer that came with the new parts, wouldn’t be necessary. Really?

            With the old washer back in, everything was complete. Right? By then I’d skipped over steps fourteen through seventeen and was desperately craving a beer, even though I hate beer. I headed downstairs to turn the water back on. Instantly the sound of the tank filling could be heard upstairs.

            At least, that was hopefully what the sound was. Running upstairs revealed that the toilet was indeed filling, and it even stopped when it was supposed to. I’d saved the day!

            Of course, there was also that water spraying out from under the toilet.

            It may seem like a good idea: Constantly cleaning your bathroom floor with a good, steady spray of water. In reality, I’ve learned that water spraying all over a room tends to end badly. I ran back downstairs to shut off the water. Then back upstairs to tighten the nut. Then back downstairs to turn on the water. Then back upstairs to get sprayed in the face, and tighten the nut more.

            The old rubber washer, built by Korean kids who are now Korean elders, just couldn’t handle the strain of being taken out, then put back in again.

            I ran back downstairs and turned off the valves, which also turned off the supply of water to my home’s heating system. One of the valves sprayed me in the face.

This was new.

            Apparently that fixture also had a rubber washer that couldn’t take the strain.

            By now I’d run up and down the stairs often enough to prepare for a marathon, my back was screaming in agony, and I’d started to wonder where that half bottle of vodka had gotten to that I stashed away somewhere after New Year’s, 2008. But I persevered, because when you gotta go, you gotta go, and my property’s outhouse disappeared a long time ago. I tried to tighten the nut again, and when that didn’t work I started going through the steps, one by one. Again.

            The dog, by then, had retreated into the living room and was lying on the couch, trying to be invisible. He began casting fearful looks in my direction when I wandered into the room, compulsively folding and unfolding the directions, clothes soaked and eyes wild.

            “I have to start over from scratch. Heh. It must be the washer inside. I gotta start all over. Ha. Ha ha. Hahahahahaha!!!!!!!”

            At which point the dog wisely left for wherever my wife was hiding.

            At the hardware store, the hardware guy patiently listened to my explanation of what I needed, which was peppered with a lot of “little round thing”, and “goes on the other thing for the stuff”, and a few words I can’t relate here. Finally I demonstrated on an actual model of a toilet, which I discovered was bolted to the wall when I tried to lift it to show him the bottom. It occurred to me later that an awfully lot of people must come in there, trying to describe the things they need for their stuff.

            But finally he understood. “We don’t have that.”

            Uh huh.

            What he did have was a little package of plastic pipe connector whatsits, which included a little plastic washer, which might or might not do the trick. “I’ll try it – why not? Also, do you have any whiskey?”

            Looks like I picked a bad decade to give up drinking.

            I completely disassembled the assembled assembly, reassembled it, added the new washer, and tromped downstairs, where the water spray soaked me until, ironically, I turned the water back on. Then the leak there stopped, and since that valve has to be on to supply the furnace, I figured it should be called even.

I heard the sound of rushing water. Edgar Allen Poe never wrote a more suspenseful moment.

            Upstairs, I discovered the toilet was working perfectly. Also, a little stream of water was wandering its way down the water line behind the toilet, onto a pile of wet towels. Absolutely nothing had changed since before the job started.

            The instructions say the connections holding all that goshdarnit inside the toilet, and hooking it to the water line, should be hand tightened only. I got a wrench. Crawling under the toilet, I cranked that water line as tight as it would go.

            The stream stopped. The dripping started. Drip. Drip. Drip. Right down the water line, in a way that made it impossible to catch in a container.

            And that’s why, if you should visit my home and have the unfortunate need for a bathroom run, you’ll find a towel wrapped around the line under my toilet, a towel that has to be replaced daily. Hey, it’s a lot less water than was going down the drain before I started.

            Besides, I know when I’m beaten.

 

            Note: The toilet has since been replaced … but not by me.

SLIGHTLY OFF THE MARK

 

In honor of my son-in-law coming over to replace the toilet in my house—as far as I know, the old one was original equipment—here’s the story from a few months back, about what happened that led to its retirement.

 

The best possible advice about home improvement comes in two simple words:

Call. A. Professional.

Okay, that’s three words. I screwed it up, just as I screw up every attempt to fix my home’s ancient and decrepit pluming. It’s a story old as time, just like my house.

I used to be smart about it. I used to rent. Sure, there was the possibility of an uncaring landlord who wouldn’t fix something, but at least it was on them, and not me.

But nooooo …. I had to buy a house.

My first attempt at home repair was to replace a leaky trap underneath my kitchen sink. A trap is the little curvy thing that keeps sewer gases from coming up, and also serves as the last line of defense against permanently lost wedding rings. My trap was of metal made in the 18 something’s, which was now no line of anything.

I didn’t know plumbing metal could get brittle. When I couldn’t get the couplings to turn, I hooked on a wrench and gave it a good, hard pull. The trap exploded in my face. It was a trap!

That’s not a metaphor—it literally exploded in my face. You’d think, after rinsing out my eyes and bandaging the cuts, I would have recognized that as a sign. But without money to pay a professional I persevered, which is to say continued failing.

Fast forward 23 years.

A faint sound coming from the toilet turned out to be a small leak of water, constantly going down the drain. There are far worse places the water could go, but it was still a waste. I looked into the back of the toilet, where all the fun innards are, and realized the easiest way to fix the problem would be to just take all the mechanical stuff out and replace it in one piece.

The very definition of “it seemed like a good idea at the time”.

At the store, I found exactly what was needed: the whole thingamajig, almost totally assembled and ready to be plugged right in. It even said on the box the two most important things you want to read: “Fits all toilets”, and “easy installation”. It could be installed in minutes, the packaging explained, which I automatically expanded to hours.

My wife checked the first aid kit and retreated to a safe position that was close enough to hear cries of pain. In truth, she’s better at this stuff than I am once she’s tried it the first time, but this particular job she hadn’t done before. I should have just left it to her, anyway.

At first the dog, who wasn’t around last time this happened, followed me around with wagging tail. After the first hour of hearing me talk to myself and read instructions out loud Bae continued to follow me, but kept his distance and wore a puzzled expression.

The first thing you should do is turn off the water to the toilet. Modern toilet installations have a valve you can turn. Mine was installed in the early 1900’s by a blind kid and two drunken monkeys. All untrained.

After some searching in the basement, it became clear I’d have to turn off all the water in the house, and fortunately there is a valve for that. Afterwards I marched back upstairs, emptied the toilet, and watched it fill up again.

Another trip downstairs. Yes, the main water line was turned off. Maybe it was water still in the lines? I opened a downstairs tap. Nothing came out. Upstairs, I flushed the toilet. It began filling again.

Another trip downstairs. Carefully following the maze of piping revealed that there was a way to isolate the toilet after all, by turning two different valves. Unfortunately, that shut off water to the furnace, which uses hot water radiators to heat the house; the water was back-feeding from the radiators into the toilet. Apparently it never occurred to the two drunken monkeys that the toilet might need to be fixed during winter.

An hour in, and the new packaging had not yet been opened.

You have to reach under the back of the toilet and unscrew stuff to take the internal fixtures out, something I didn’t know until after opening the instructions. The day before I’d hurt my back shoveling snow, so curling up on the floor of my miniscule bathroom was a new adventure in pain. (It was at about this time that the dog started keeping its distance.)

Still, removing the old stuff turned out to be easy once I figured out how. The biggest problem was that all the water in the back didn’t drain out until I disconnected the water line, then it all came out at once. Not to worry: I always have a stack of towels waiting. Better water than blood.

Then I took a closer look at the instructions for the “easy” installment of my new whatchamacallit:

There were nineteen steps. Nineteen.

And get this: The stuff that was all together, so that all I had to do was put it in? It had to be taken apart first. Yeah. There were three individual whojamadiggys in the package, and one was a little setup of two washers, and two plastic nuts, already connected to a long, curved plastic … thing. They all had to be separated. One rubber washer turned out to be two washers, which were apparently made one inside the other to save money. It didn’t say how to separate them. By then I was ready to use a chain saw.

Next week: It gets worse.

ozma914: (Dorothy and the Wizard)
( May. 3rd, 2014 11:25 am)

We bought a bathroom sink last night, and already have a newer toilet waiting, thanks to my daughter and son-in-law. This morning we spent some time trying to figure out the maze of plumbing in the basement, which has resolved itself more or less into two different but interrelated systems, installed decades ago in an already standing house by two drunk bakers and their assistant, a trained monkey. (I'm kidding: The monkey wasn't trained.) Apparently they had a dozen extra valves they didn't know what to do with, so they just threw them in at random.

 

The plan: To turn off and drain the hot water heating system, remove the radiator, sink, and toilet from the bathroom, replace the already ripped-up bathroom carpet (seriously, whose idea was that?) with linoleum, then put them all back in again in working order. Then put all the old stuff out for spring cleanup a week from today.

 

Pray for us. Because we don't have a prayer.
.

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