The Joys Of Home Maintenance or Why Plumbers Make The Big Bucks

The toilet in the master bedroom, for the last few weeks, had developed a small leak inside the tank. Nothing major, you could hear what sounded like a faucet dripping slowly. I chose what I felt was the best course of action; I ignored it. The wife did not, however,so handy dandy man that I am I made the mistake of investigating it. Big mistake! I could see where drips kept forming at the top of the refill valve, which is the mechanism where the ball float arm attached. There were four screws on top that seemed like they would be applying pressure to a gasket. OK, easy fix, tighten the screws..stop the leak...have a cup of coffee and take a nap after a job well done.

WRONG!

All that I had succeeded in doing was to turn a small drip into a steady stream and after a while the toilet started flushing itself without the aid of a proximity switch like you would find in a public restroom. So, Handy Doody tried to figure a way to make it stop...and I did by shutting off the water to the toilet. In the long gone days of my bachelorhood, that would have been the end of it. As a tired, crippled old man, however, reaching the shutoff valve every time the toilet needed flushing was a painful prospect and would simply not do. I had to fix the thing. So, I drained the tank to see what there was to see. What I saw was not what I wanted to see; and seeing what I saw made me want to see no more. What I saw was dirt, grime, rust, and a headache in the making; not to mention a back and neck ache and the subsequent leg pains that always accompanied the back pain. If a cartoon thought bubble were to appear above my head, at this juncture, there would have been the effigies of a heating pad and a bottle of Percosets. Downright prophetic, it would turn out to be.

The house had been manufactured in 1996 and it was evident that the toilet innards were original. This was going to be no quick fix and I was off to Home Depot for parts. Fortunately, there are universal repair kits on the market that promise to be a, "Quick And Easy Repair For Almost Any Toilet." Well, who ever wrote that lied; that is a fact, pure and simple. Being "Universal," by definition, meant that there were a "universe" of toilet styles out there and the enclosed parts were a generalized collection that may or may not apply to the toilet unit in question. First off, and a foreshadowing of what I was in store for that I utterly failed to comprehend, I was amazed that such a very large instruction sheet could be folded up small enough to fit in such a small parts package.
I was also amazed, following my original perusal of said instructions, that the enclosed parts depicted, did not exactly match up to the parts enclosed. Go figure.

At this point, there were two thought bubbles over my head. There was still the original, the heating pad and the bottle of Percoset (the Percoset bottle was now twice the size that it had been) and the second depicted a happy, fat plumber with dollar signs for eyes. I popped the second bubble and went for my tool box which was, sadly, lacking in any Liquid Wrench or any other solvent strong enough to dissolve the large quantities of rust which covered the metal parts in the insides of the toilet tank. The only thing that went right was being able to turn off the water to the tank. It all went down-slope from there. Even the plastic and rubber parts were fused and I'm referring, initially, to the plastic nut that holds the water source tube to the part of the toilet innards thingy that protrudes from the bottom of the tank. According to the voluminous instructions, this thingy is actually a part of the tank refill mechanism. I needed to disconnect this connection in order to drain what water there was left in the tank after flushing the bulk of the tanks water. With a measure of false confidence, I reached for my Channel Lock pliers and set to work. It didn't help that the toilet was located in a small cubbyhole that was, loosely speaking, the size of a high school students gym locker. I managed to reach it, though, and with a good deal of grunting and mild cursing I managed to disconnect the connection and succeeded in allowing the remaining water in the tank to flow gracefully onto the floor. Again, amazement came into play, as I had no idea that there was that much water still left in the tank. This water was now assembled in a large puddle on the floor surrounding the toilet. Half of a roll of paper towels later, I was ready to continue.

I began to continue by comparing the existing tank mechanism with the picture of a tank mechanism shown in the instructions. It is safe to say that the picture resembled the existing mechanism exactly the same as a Ferrari resembles a toddler's big wheel. It seems that toilets had evolved somewhat in the last sixteen years as had their component components. Right, so much for the instructions. I examined what was, I had by now concluded, the original parts in the toilet tank. I should say, rather, what was left of the original parts in the toilet tank. What I at first thought were two, domed shaped bolt covers in the bottom of the tank, covering the top of the bolts that held the tank to the toilet itself, actually turned out to be large, domed shaped rust deposits that used to be the top of the bolts that held the tank to the toilet. Considering the amount of rust covering most, if not all, of the metal parts in the tank, and the degraded condition of the rubber and plastic parts I had encountered thus far, the image in my head of the happy, fat plumber with dollar signs for eyes, had suddenly gained a good twenty pounds and his entire head had been replaced with one, very large, dollar sign. The Percoset bottle and heating pad had morphed into a hospital bed and an IV Morphine drip. With false confidence now giving way to factual apprehension; I soldiered on, certain now that the quick and easy fix I had started out anticipating, had become, without a doubt, a major plumbing repair.

Twelve years ago, I would have happily attacked the problem with relish. Now, however, even the prospect of mustard, onions, chili, and cheese would not even make me feel better about what I was about to attempt. I was a very different man back then; twelve years younger and more limber, for example. Anyway, there was nothing for it but to set about doing the job at hand, knowing that I would hate myself in the morning. Actually, however, I began hating myself much sooner than that. In order to get to the nuts that secured the bolts that connected the tank to the toilet, I had to squeeze myself, on my back, between the wall and toilet, which was a space that would comfortably fit a folded newspaper, only just. Using half a can of WD40 and vice grips, I set to work trying to get the left hand nut loose with my right arm over my head in a completely un-natural position, and my hand in an equally un-natural position. It took a good five minutes of more grunting and mildly stronger language to get it off. I took nearly ten minutes to extricate myself from the position I was in with yet more grunting and not so mild language. (See above, the statement about not being as old and limber.) I then had to repeat the process for the right hand bolt only, this time, I had to use my left hand which, thanks to the many times I had injured that particular hand in the past, was a bit arthritic. I took me nearly ten minutes to loosen the nut and, that finally accomplished, I found that, thanks to the many times I had injured my right shoulder, thus inviting more that a little bit of bursitis to take up residence, I was pretty much stuck where I was. I didn't have the strength in that arm to push myself out of the oh-so-very un-natural position that I was in. So, not being one to let such things get me down, I did the only thing that I could do in the circumstances; I took a short nap.

A half an hour later I was sufficiently recovered that I was able to push myself clear of the toilet. I had to have another brief nap before I could get up off the floor. Once back on my feet it occurred to me that I would feel much better if I was off of my feet. I took an hour nap, this time, after which I determined that the toilet tank, fused as it was to the toilet by what had once been a solidly firm rubber gasket but had degraded, over the years, into a gooey mass of...well, goo, of course, and it was beyond my limited lifting ability to lift off of the toilet. I then did the only thing that I could do; I took another nap and waited for my wife to come home from work.

I want to pause in my narration for a moment and explain the reason for this quite rambling narrative. Had this been a public television documentary about the pitfalls of home maintenance, there would now be a break in the action for various pompous, public television presenters to tell you how lucky you are that you had them, the pompous, public television presenters, who were on hand to present presentations like this, commercial free. For the next twenty or thirty minutes of this commercial free presentation, four or five pompous public television presenters would tell you how wonderful they were and would continuously point to several tiers of not quite so wonderful, non-pompous volunteers who were manfully (and femally) manning (and femaling) rows of telephones that you, the oh so lucky to have this wonderful thing called, commercial-free, public television that was brought to you by the contribution of commercial companies and institutions and by contributions from you, the non-commercial viewers of commercial free, public television, and you should now take advantage of this strictly non-commercial break in the commercial free public television presentation to pick up the phone and pledge lots of money in return for outrageously over priced premiums that you probably don't need anyway but will always be near at hand to remind you of how good you should feel about yourself for supporting commercial free public television,and would most likely end up as yard sale fodder and/or finding a place on a shelf of some thrift store somewhere...Ok, this last, quite loosely phrased paragraph which, I admit, is grammatically and punctuational challenged is exactly not what has been taking place. In fact, what has been taking place had originally started out as an email to my best friend about how a bad week, physically, had devolved into a worse week, both physically and emotionally. A few minutes ago I decided to read what I had, up to this point, written and I was (here is that word again) amazed at how much I had written and how wordy and rambling this writing that I had written had become and I realized that I was no longer writing an email to my best friend, but instead, what I had, up to this point, was more fitting for my often neglected for months on end, blog.

So, by the miracle of those magic words, "Copy and Paste" this overlong email to my best friend has miraculously become a wordy, rambling, grammatically and punctuational challenged entry into this, my often neglected for months at a time, blog. I will mention, as I often mention in my blog and, for that matter, pretty much anything that I write, that it is perfectly alright for me to be grammatically and punctuational challenged because I majored in English in college.

Ok, where was I? Right, my wife came home from work and, after a change of clothing, she was able to separate the toilet tank from the toilet and place it, as per the instructions, on a level and stable surface, which in this case, was on top of the clothes washer. I was then able to, with a now consistent level of grunting and definitely stronger language, remove the rest of the tanks terribly deteriorated innards. Once I had accomplished that and had cleaned the tank as much as possible, I set about installing the shiny new toilet tank parts that did not resemble, nor would they have resembled even if they had been new, the old parts. Finally, thanks very little at all to the new parts instruction sheet but, mostly by trial and error, much dandruff agitating, and many temptations to resort to napping, it was time for my wife to replace the tank, with its brand new, solidly firm rubber gasket designed to create a water tight seal between the tank and toilet and seat it in place. All that was left for me to do was to bolt the two toilet halves together with shiny, new, rust resistant brass bolts, nuts, and rubber washers.

Then, fingers crossed, back and legs on fire, it was the moment of truth. I turned the valve that fed water into the tank. Very slowly, at first, checking for any sign of leaks, until I had the water full on and rapidly filling the tank. It was a veritable mackerel, and I couldn't help but say, "Holy Miracle, it is a mackerel that it really works!" I told my wife, I said, "My wife, it is a mackerel," said I. "It is healed and works like new."

I was euphoric in my success and I reflected that, whereas it had taken me more than half a day to do a job that twelve years ago would have taken me less than an hour to do, I had, all agony aside, managed to do the job and do it right. And lo, did my wife, as would all long suffering wive would do, upon seeing the joy and pride in thine husband's face, make it known that there abides, at the other end of our home sweet hovel, another bathroom with yet another, just as old, toilet lurking therein...Thus did I, blissful bubble of joy and pride maliciously popped, did the only thing that a beat up, aging decidedly un-gracefully, old man could do...I took a nap.