Today in "things that I never want to do ever again": install a toilet, unless it is in the centre of a wide open room and not connected to a water source, like the model in the instructional 'net video we watched yesterday. However, the bathrooms in our home are so unlike these Utopian plumbing settings - each toilet sits in its own little cubby hole, hidden behind the shower, with nary six inches of clearance on either side to ensure you don't sit side-saddle. This is perhaps a design remnant of the early 80s, when our home was built and apparently bathrooms weren't outfit with doors, so it was necessary to conceal the toilet from view, leaving only your two naked knees to stick out from behind the shower stall (be sure to cough loudly when someone enters).
Last night I installed 2 toilets 4 times, leaving a trail of mangled and messy wax gasket detritus on everything I touched. I slammed. I swore. I ground my knuckles on radiators and door jambs. The neighbours blushed. The cats hid. Lydia still miraculously slept. Imagine the scene - a hot and flustered and embarrassingly frustrated Aaron straining to hold a heavy toilet (with a few litres of rusty water still swishing around the bowl and tank) several inches over two precariously balanced screws and the last precious wax gasket (because we already ruined the other ones and goddammmit I'm not going back for another) while Terri was prone on the shiny new bathroom floor wearing a miner's lamp on her head, doing her best to guide the porcelain load into place and ensure I don't put something through the window in a fit of waxy rage.
As of 10:00 last night, things were "good enough". As of 6:30 this morning, one still wobbles a bit when you sit on it and there is a small puddle under one of the tanks (not surprisingly, the one missing the rubber gasket) - know this for the next time you come over because I'm never touching them again.
About me:
- muiseam
- Dartmouth, NS, Canada
- I live on the suburban plains of Cole Harbour. I take my coffee large with single milk. I am an open book. Some days I wish I were a housecat.
2 comments:
Funny you should mention that. I went over to my parent's house to help put the finishing touches on their newly tiled shower stall. All it needed was the handle on the valve and the showerhead. I skipped step 1 of the instructions "Turn off water" because i thought the valve would have been left in the "off" position. This was not the case when I removed the showerhead pipe cap. Tons of water came at me like a fire hose and it was coming from within the wall! To make matters worse, there's no handle on the valve yet! After about 15 seconds of clothed, soaking-wet, find-a-wrench panic, I got the water turned off but not before dumping god-knows-how-much water into the wall. We shall wait and see if the dining room ceiling needs to be re-done because of my incompetence.
Not a plumber...
Not to laugh but... ha ha ha.
Also, I know the feeling.
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