Toilets

It’s amazing the s#%^t life throws at you. It is that kind of day. Of course it pales in comparison to the people in Boston, so sad.

This morning I woke earlier than usual to make it to a 10 o’clock meeting of yarn bombers in our area. I delayed working on my second fingerless mitten last night, so I would have an easy project to work on and get to talk and know everyone. Of course there is always the never-ending sock project. I had both tucked away in my bag.

Every single person at the cafe was on their portable computer. No yarn or needles in sight. So I strolled through town, browsed the book store, talked to friends I ran into and eventually made a loop and was back at the cafe. Still no yarn, except what was in my bag. So I went home.

For a couple of days now I had the door to one of our bathrooms closed so no one would use the toilet. There was a little wetness that could not be explained by impaired aim. Somehow my thought is always: if I can’t see it, it might not exist. But in the back of my mind I knew I would rather live in a two bathroom house, especially after running into Stephen a couple of times while heading to the other bathroom.

So when our son Toby shows up and asks what work there is, did I ever have a job for him. It builds character to learn how to do improvements around the house, and who am I to stand in the way of our son’s character.

First go to store and buy new wax seal, most likely the culprit. Then remove the tank from toilet bowl. Well, how? Rusted on nuts and bolts did not budge even after many, many sprays of WD40. One more spray Toby? He was not convinced. Instead he talked me into removing the whole toilet with tank still attached. I know the danger zone we were in. Toilets are porcelain and can break. If that happened, well, new toilet. Then we thought it best to move the whole thing outside. Yes, good idea, more access all around, but bolts still not dancing, not even one partial turn. Now what? Well, I did have the correct little saw to threaten the bolts with. I must have bought that when I installed this toilet and removed the old one. The problem seemed familiar all of a sudden. Note to toilet hardware manufacturers: please use materials that do not rust since toilets have something to do with water, unless you don’t flush, but let’s not go there.

It took a while but eventually we succeeded. And managed to saw into the tank seal. No problem, it was not looking its prime anyway. Back to the store for new bolts and nuts and seal. Yes, I know, I said all we will need is a wax seal, but bear with me, we are building character here. The rest of the story went smoothly and after three hours we had the toilet installed, but I had not knitted one stitch.

But, this is what I’m going to do next, sit down, relax, and knit a while on the second mitten. Ok, I now have four mittens that still need a thumb, I’ll get to that too.

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