While I sent out copies of my book to somewhat willing beta-readers I remembered I had some projects kicking around the house.\u00a0 When I mentioned this, Camera Girl informed me that I had failed as a maintenance manager.\u00a0 She handed me the contact information of the last plumber we had used (quite a while ago) and reminded me that we now had three plumbing issues that needed to be attended to.\u00a0 These problems had been haunting her sense of propriety for a good long while and now righteous anger had welled up and I was the malefactor who should have taken matters into my own hands long ago, \u201cCall him today!\u00a0 It\u2019ll take a week to get him here so get this done before we\u2019re too busy in a couple of weeks.\u201d\u00a0 I nodded my head in bitter remembrance.\u00a0 She was right.\u00a0 There was a water line on one of the toilet tanks that leaked when it was flushed.\u00a0 There was a shower drain on the first floor that had a plate that had no screw holding it down but was welded tight and she was afraid it was clogged based on some comments she had heard from the kids during the summer pool season when they used that shower after swimming.\u00a0 And finally, there was that sink basin that had a crack in the porcelain that leaked.<\/p>\n
Each problem separately was minor and ignorable for at least the medium term.\u00a0 But taken together they spoke of dereliction of duty, mopery and dopery, flimflammery and bone-laziness.\u00a0 I was contrite.\u00a0 I mumbled my assent.\u00a0 And she left to go about her litany of errands.\u00a0 She had to buy crickets for the two preying mantises that she had captured this week.\u00a0 She wanted to save them from the approaching cold weather.\u00a0 And also, to see if they would produce egg sacs for next year.\u00a0 And she had various other duties; packages for the post office, books and movies to the library, a jigsaw puzzle for a friend of hers and some miscellaneous goods to buy at Wallymart.\u00a0 Each one of these multitasked errands added to the indictment of my malfeasance.<\/p>\n
So, I sat down and tried to put down on paper the plumbing work I wanted done.\u00a0 After all you don\u2019t call a tradesman and ask him to spend expensive time without trying to minimize the cost by defining the work.\u00a0 First off there was the leaking water line on the toilet.\u00a0 It was one of those somewhat flexible stainless lines.\u00a0 Where it met the valve near the floor it was rusted from the dripping water it created.\u00a0 But was it dripping from the toilet connection or the valve fitting.\u00a0 And I realized I had never even bothered to decide which problem it was.\u00a0 If it was leaking from downstream of the valve, maybe I could buy a new piece of flexible line and replace it beyond the shutoff valve.<\/p>\n
So, I went upstairs and looked at the line.\u00a0 It was dry.\u00a0 So, I flushed the toilet and I saw drops of water flowing down from the toilet to the floor.\u00a0 Now I was interested.\u00a0 I kneeled down and twisted around and I could see a plastic fitting at the toilet tank.\u00a0 There was a threaded nut.\u00a0 So, I tried to hand tighten it.\u00a0 It gave a little so I tightened as hard as I could by hand.\u00a0 I dried off the line and flushed the toilet.\u00a0 No water.\u00a0 I flushed it again.\u00a0 No water.\u00a0 I flushed it a third time.\u00a0 No water.\u00a0 Hail the conquering hero!<\/p>\n
I went down to the bottom floor and looked at the shower drain.\u00a0 Sure enough, the drain plate had no screw but was tight to the orifice.\u00a0 I stared at it for a few seconds and pulled on the plate as hard as I could and it popped off. There was some debris in it so I got my pliers and pulled out some hair and muck.\u00a0 Then I ran the shower full blast for ten minutes.\u00a0 No water backing up.\u00a0 Now I was a veritable demigod of home improvement.<\/p>\n
I marched up to the cracked sink with an air of bored confidence and examined the piping connections.\u00a0 Sure enough, there was a plastic threaded coupling connecting it to the piping and almost nothing else in the way from removing it from the countertop.\u00a0 With a look of contempt, I walked over to the contact information with half a mind to call up this tradesman and inform him that his services would not be needed.<\/p>\n
When Camera Girl returned, I straightened her out on the status of her honey-do list.\u00a0 \u201cItems one and two solved!\u00a0 Item three has been surveyed, a path forward has been devised and the schedule is already in place.\u00a0 Now where\u2019s my coffee?!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
While I sent out copies of my book to somewhat willing beta-readers I remembered I had some projects kicking around the house.\u00a0 When I mentioned<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3366,1263],"tags":[3475,5010],"class_list":["post-34642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-in-dunwich","category-stuff-that-personally-interests-me-miscellaneous","tag-home-repair","tag-mopery-and-dopery"],"yoast_head":"\n