Flush With Success

"Having knowledge is to be aware that a tomato is a fruit; having wisdom is knowing not to put one in a fruit salad."

Pope John The Tall, in an address to the United Planets Council, Star Date 5689.65 (CST)

For those of you who follow the various ramblings of your Pope, the aforementioned John The Tall, leader of the All John All The Time World Church and the person, now infamous, who introduced the "soothing balm of Johnism" to an unsuspecting world, and whose ascent to Popedom is described above (see above), you will know that, being dissatisfied with sun and beautiful weather after 13 long, grueling years in the San Fernando Valley region of the Granola City, Los Angeles ("What isn't fruits and nuts is flakes"), I returned to my ancestral roots here on the frigid planes of Northern Illinois recently. (My dissatisfaction with the weather in SoCal is reminiscent of the sarcastic remark by the character Lacy Underall in the movie "Caddyshack": "Daddy thought I was having too much fun in Manhattan." Yeah, there was way too much of that horrible nice weather there in L.A.)

Imagine being removed quickly from a lounge chair in the sun by the pool and dropped unceremoniously into a huge bucket of ice water.

I was having no luck whatsoever with finding an apartment by remote control, i.e., via the Internet, despite my knowledge of the area from my many previous years of residence here, and bemoaned my difficulties to my daughter on several occasions, as we spoke on the phone last fall. She, in casual conversation with her mother-in-law, a very kind and generous lady named Mohandas (that's not her real name; the names in this story have been changed to protect the innocent and the uninformed), mentioned my constant whining about my difficulties, and Mohandas, in a moment of generosity that I'm sure she has since come to regret, offered, through the good offices of Fred, my kid, to allow me to move into her home and temporarily occupy her commodious basement, which was at the time, sitting mostly vacant and cold.

Thinking that apartment hunting would be considerably easier on-site, rather than on-line, I contacted her, we worked out the details and one 2000-mile, 38-hour drive cross-country in a rented 16' truck with my son-in-law and my car, attached firmly to a trailer hooked to the rear (my car, not my son-in-law), the rest, as they say, is geography. Killing two birds with the proverbial single stone, I was now home for the holidays and able to pursue permanent housing in person.

Mohandas is a very nice lady (okay, her real name is Goneril), and she has been more than accommodating during my residence here in her dungeon (it's actually a beautifully neat and clean space, with two remarkable features: 1) it's huge, being large enough for hockey games and 2) it's also cold enough for those same games; it's never above about 60 degrees down here, which is colder than you think when you're sitting at your desk working or lounging in front of the TV). I use her kitchen (sparingly, but I never used my own kitchen more than sparingly before) and her guest bathroom, both of which are upstairs. Other than that, I stay down here, out of her way as much as possible.

It's her bathroom that's the focus of today's little saga, specifically the toilet.

(Now before I relate my tale, let me digress a moment to point something out to you, dear follower of Johnism: anyone who knows me well knows that I am a staunch supporter of equality, in all aspects of life, for women. Equal pay, equal rights, equal everything, the whole enchilada, okay? This isn't a story about an incompetent female, so I don't want to hear any of that "he's a sexist" nonsense from anyone when you've finished reading this.)

One day last week, I ventured into the above-mentioned bathroom, with the express intent of relieving my over-burdened bladder, and upon entering, I noticed a small piece of what looked like, and turned out to be, plastic, lying on the floor next to the commode. Since I was mostly certain it hadn't been there earlier when I was taking my shower, I knew it to be a recent intruder. As my glance moved upwards, I further realized that the small invader of my privacy had, in fact, removed itself from the handle on the toilet that releases the water that flushes same (technical term: "trip lever"), in what was obviously an attempt to escape and secure it's freedom from the tyranny of boring repetition.

After brief examination, my first, and quickly dismissed, thought was to glue it back onto the handle; unfortunately, I immediately recognized that this would, at best, prolong the incipient failure of the handle, and such failure would necessitate my either a) using Mohandas/Goneril's bathroom to relieve myself, b) relieve myself and not flush or c) go in the shower, all of which were unacceptable alternatives.

My next thought was to hustle down to the local purveyor of all things repair, Home Depot, and obtain a replacement; however, closer examination of the now-defunct handle revealed that it was imprinted with the name of the manufacturer, indicating that it was an OEM product. Knowing that my erstwhile "landlady" has intentions of selling her place and retiring in the near future, and not wanting to be the cause of a huge drop in market value ("Yeah, we were gonna' offer her 175 for her place, but when we saw that aftermarket handle on the throne in the guest bath, we knocked 5K right off the top"), and further knowing that the replacements at HD are either cheap junk made in a foreign country where the workers are exploited and earn about 14 cents a week or ridiculously expensive, I figured I'd better seek out an OEM part.

(For the uninitiated, the term "OEM" stands for "Oboe Estover Mitosis".)

Although I'm not a child of the computer age, I have however been using them since the mid-1980's and have well acclimated myself to the 21st century mode of shopping, i.e., finding things on-line. (I may not be able to find an apartment, but a OEM replacement handle for a toilet, no problema.)

I Googled the manufacturer of the toilet (Gerber, and all I could think was that I hoped it wasn't the same company of baby food fame), found a plumbing supply place that sold their parts, located the handle in question, walked upstairs to double-check it was the correct part, (it was), placed the order ($8.19 for the new handle and $9.00 shipping; welcome to the wonderful world of on-line shopping), and less than ten minutes later, the deed was accomplished.

Please note that, to date, I have yet to apprise Mohandas/Goneril of the failure of her plumbing. I have the situation under control.

M/G's new handle arrived several days later at my P.O. box, and after being notified of it's arrival, I picked it up and brought it home; installation was briefer than the time it took to order it (if you've never replaced a toilet handle, trust me, only being severely challenged mechanically would enable someone to make this a difficult project), and the toilet is now back to full functionality.

Later that evening, after M/G had gotten home from work, I arose from the dungeon with the old, broken handle in hand, to explain to her what had happened.

I was a moment into my story of escapist pieces of plastic and broken handles, when I happened to look up and noticed the look on M/G's face: utter perplexity; she seemed to have no idea what the hell I was talking about, let alone any comprehension of the arcane workings of residential plumbing. I was convinced I was correct in my assumption when I asked her, in a moment of attempted levity, if, rather than throw the now-failed part in the garbage, if she would like to keep it as a souvenir, to which she replied, "well, if you think we should".

It was at that moment that I realized that a) some people should probably not own their homes and that b) those same people are the very ones who keep home repair/home handymen in lucrative business.

And gender isn't the issue here, as I'm sure this applies to many of those of the male of the species as well (I once had a neighbor, a guy, who told me his idea of home repair was to call 1-800-HELPME; I have an older brother cast from the same mold), which is why I gave the "I'm not a sexist pig" speech above. That my son-in-law owns his own very successful general contracting business and is very generous with his time is a blessing for this nice lady, otherwise she would be at the mercy of smart-aleck repairpersons like me, who would make bad jokes about souvenir toilet handles and soak her a gazillion to replace same.

And while none of this is of any great import in the overall scheme of life, it provided me with an object lesson of some value: even a broken clock is correct twice a day.

Which of course has nothing to do with my story, but I needed some kind of familiar aphorism to end this tale.

Hey, it was better than even a blind pig finds a truffle now and then.

I can't wait to be around when the furnace filter needs to be changed.

Love and DIY,

PJTT

copyright 2014 Krissongs Inc.