Plumbing and the Galumphing Geezer!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:          Plumbing and the Galumphing Geezer!

"What the heck was that?!!"  I spoke the question in deep sleep, aloud, and it roused me from a haunting and rather violent dream.  People were chasing and shooting at me!  Eventually, conscious and somewhat lucid, I uttered a couple of obscenities, angered at being hurled awake by the nasty and troubling dream at 3:00 o'clock in the (obscenity) morning.  I rose from my turbulent slumber, tripped over the slippers for which I searched and found rather painfully -- having stubbed a few toes! -- and padded to the bathroom, a necessary stumble in any event.

Nothing appeared amiss at first bump, but upon flushing the contrivance, I noted from the obvious lack of proper water-related sound that the commode was functioning improperly.  The tank was not being replenished with water.  Nothing was flowing, not a dribble of anything approaching a sufficient quantity to re-fill the reservoir. I uttered more obscenities as I realized I had to investigate the matter!  I removed certain adornments from the top of the tank cover, and peered fecklessly inside at the thing's wet and repulsive mechanism

I took hold of the polymer tumbler that sits on an edge of the bathtub, and began re-filling the tank manually, cup by cup.  It took a long time to bring the water level up to the proper mark! I returned the tumbler to its usual position at the side of the tub. 

Example of a Polymer Vessel.

As a frugal householder -- cheap, if you like -- I was determined, despite the ridiculous hour in the (obscenity deleted) middle of the night, to ascertain the difficulty.  For an inveterate "Don't-Do-It-Yourselfer-You-Unconscious-Buffoon," it was like opening the hood of an hybrid automobile and expecting mechanical wisdom to penetrate one's brain miraculously!

Inside the tank is a miniature resin, faucet-like device from which water is supposed to emanate into a narrow cylindrical tube from beneath said spout.  That apparently is the system that replenishes the porcelain tank!  No moisture escaped from the device...  Nothing!!

  

"I wonder if it's the 'float,' " I pondered aloud.  "Maybe I could replace the float, but is that the essence of the difficulty?!" again, aloud, as if the gods of plumbing would materialize and pour instructions into my ear!  "Wait," I mused, "Is there a blockage in the water line?"  I jiggled a few things.  "Hold it," I said aloud, "maybe its an anomaly, and if I flush the business once again, all will function properly!" Nothing! ("Filthy swine of a toilet!!!," I said as I kicked the base of the thing, hurting my toes in the process!  I mumbled additional obscenities!)  

I took hold, again, of the polymer vessel that sits on an edge of the bathtub, and began re-filling the tank manually, cup by cup.  It took a long time to bring the water level up to the proper mark...  again! 

At about 4:00 in the morning, having spent an hour investigating the difficulty, I accomplished nothing! Then I had an epiphany!  "Had my brain been properly engaged," I pondered aloud...  I often speak to myself as if I'm twin geezer idiots... "I might have covered the 10 paces to a kitchen cupboard and found a pitcher, filling it from the more robust spigot in the bathtub, thus

re-filling the toilet tank far more quickly and efficiently!"

Alas, that thought occurred to me only after an hour's worth of feckless fidgeting, jiggling parts and filling the tank with seemingly endless cups of water from the far less energetic bathroom sink spigot!  I shuffled back to bed, somehow dropped off to slumber and had a nightmare about clogged drains, recalcitrant plumbing devices and treading water in a vast sea of angry, storm-ravaged flooded lavatories!!  Gasping, sinking, gasping...  Help!!

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The following morning, undaunted, I hauled my tool box from our home's lower regions up to the bathroom, considered the problem carefully, looked stupidly at toilet, then at toolbox...  In the end, I did in fact employ a more suitable tool -- I telephoned the plumber!!  What a triumph...  only $120.00 later...!  (I should have watched to see what he did to fix the foolish damn thing!!)    
_________________________________________________________________________________

Upon relating the story to SweetHeart, she reminded me of other "Proud Moments" in my "Fit-It-Yourself-You-Incompetent-Dolt" career!" Such as...  Earlier on in our married life, SweetHeart's mother surrendered a 1974 Chevrolet to us. Certain things in that vehicle didn't

This model looks far more handsome
than the automobile I "fixed"!

quite work properly. I peered under the heavy green hood, and began to "fix" stuff. I clipped some extraneous wires, removed a few unneeded parts...  The air conditioner stopped working, strangely. "Why doesn't the horn honk?" I asked SweetHeart during one of our uncomfortably warm auto outings! SweetHeart didn't merely request, but rather demanded that I never again attempt to "repair" our automobiles.

(The Diesel engine "Rabbit" we owned had to be taken behind the garage and "shot" -- well, figuratively, sort of -- following my attempt to replace the "glow plugs"!  I should always listen to SweetHeart and stay the hell away from any automotive part that is not situated inside the seating area...  that, too, with circumspection!!)  

(Special Note of Dedication and Gratitude):  The perpetrator devotes this writing primarily to the beautiful, delightful, talented and much-loved Bethie, who wisely and graciously recommended that I immortalize in print what began as an "oral tradition" narrative.  And to Alie, who suggested I use the ridiculously stilted language that I employed in the verbal telling of the "Toilet Tale."  And to SweetHeart who reminded me to include certain "automotive adventures" in which the perpetrator has been known to stumble!  The latter two personages are equally beautiful, delightful, talented and much-loved as well!!)       

  

"DIY" and the Single-Minded, Slightly but Not Always Competent Geezer!

Memoirs of a Geezer!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:    "DIY" and the Single-Minded, Slightly but Not Always Competent Geezer!

Pictured above is an image
of a menacing bird that
stared at me while I patched
a hole in a soffit...  Musta
been its nest??!!

Periodically -- and I suppose many are so afflicted! -- I tour our "estate" to determine possibly urgent maintenance needs!  (Drat the confounded curse of responsibility...  it's like a "plague of conscience"??!!)  And then what happens??!!...  

...Suddenly, last summer...  I decided both the upper front porch railing and the upper rear deck and railing system demanded attention, that is, scraping and removing old material and applying new primer and a finished coat of paint.  I also heeded the advice of my wife and attempted to repair a gaping hole in a soffit (fascia, too!) above the upper front porch.  "Must'a been those darn birds!" I opined upon acknowledging the great, gaping mess in the upper regions of the structure.  (A gaggle of birds kept staring at me menacingly as I worked!)    

Aging geezer that I am, I nearly fell off the ladder four or five times.  "We should move to a condo that hires people to do that kind of work," my wise and protective wife almost demanded.  

"We'll look into that," I replied.  "I agree it's an excellent thought.  I'm too old to be working on a ladder for several hours on end...  I could get dizzy and plummet to the earth!  Worse...  the concrete!"  As of this writing, we haven't changed lodgings!  But we're looking into it...

Idiotic though it may seem for a barely competent DO-IT-YOURSELF'er, I have long felt I could accomplish many different tasks best left to professionals.  In one instance in the mid-1990's, I attempted to repair an aging Chevrolet.  After my "repairs," and the removal of

I didn't actually fall off
the ladder, this time...
But I teetered and
wobbled a lot!  Whew!!...

several pieces of "extraneous" hardware, some silly "needless" wires too, the air conditioning never worked again, the windscreen wipers bumped into one another and mechanical difficulties appeared one after another until finally the automobile expired.  When I attempted to change the "glow plugs" on a Volkswagen "Rabbit," we eventually had to "shoot the thing and put it out of its misery," as one of our wiser acquaintances observed.  (She was fond of metaphors!...  or is it  anthropomorphism??)

I have had some successes, however!  I replaced a faucet system for my dear friend, Steve, and his family.  Although I had to use several innovative fastening devices to anchor the thing to the sink.  The faucet sat a bit higher than Missus would have liked!  I rebuilt the threshold at our back door.  Didn't do too bad a job, either.  It just wobbles a little...  And, I've done concrete repairs around the periphery of our 118-year-old homestead.  It may not be pretty, but it seems functional.  I think!...  

Illustration above is how
one feels one appears
trying to schlep a 3-ton
refrigerator (beer usage only)!

My brother, by contrast, is a DIY genius -- builder, electrician, engineer, designer, plumber...  He can do, build and fix anything...  Big jerk!!  When he married and left home for good, that is, left the old nuclear family home of our youth, my father began to telephone me every second day or so to fix things.  He must have thought my brother and me interchangeable parts!  What a disappointment for the old fellow.  I have a great friend, Tom G., who is also a DIY expert.  He can do all that stuff, too.  Why is that?  Is it in the genes?  (Ach!)  Can't be!  My father only picked up a hammer to chase vermin out of mother's tomatoes!  

I seriously lacked the manual arts competence of my older brother.  I allowed an ancient, seemingly 3-ton refrigerator to crash through a basement wall, for example.  "Boy genius," my father labeled me, sarcasm dripping acidly from his words...  But that's a story for another time...  (Well...  maybe just a taste -- a friend and I tried to "hoik" it into the back of an open convertible.  We eventually tied the dolly holding the accursed "ice box" to the back of the automobile and hauled it like a trailer for five or six miles...)

Although I almost always did my parents' bidding, and tried to do my best even when the task was utterly ridiculous, even into my own advancing age.  I stuffed steel wool into imaginary holes in the eaves, for example, where my father was certain squirrels were gaining access to his attic.  We used live traps to capture the invading "tree rodents" and then drove them -- at his command -- from Wauwatosa to Mequon for release "into the wilds," as he'd say.  When another squirrel invaded his attic, he'd pull a face, contortedly quizzical, and ask, "How the hell did that damn beast find its way back here from Mequon?"  I'm sure he was joking...  Wasn't he??  Eventually, we engaged a kind of exterminator who discovered the actual point of entry.  The squirrel invasion ceased.

"Hey Pops!  You look a bit thick!
You got squirrels in your attic,
maybe?...  Tee Hee...  Snicker!..."

I suppose it's a kind of conditioning.  Pavlovian stuff!  My mother insisted I could fix anything she asked me to repair, build anything...  I put up a Christmas tree on one occasion and somehow managed to cause a power saw to gnaw its way into a paint-striped, newly replaced base board!  (The thing is, I fashioned a make-shift stand, but failed to consider placing the stand in water!!  I tried sawing the stand to accommodate the size of the water bucket; vibrations sent ornaments sailing, crashing...  Such a fuss; maybe they were heirlooms!)  My mother returned to the scene from shopping.  "Is the tree up?" she asked, walking into the living room.  "Oh," she exclaimed, in shock but outwardly calm.  "Can you fix that?"  Never quite a perfect repair, she placed a large chair nearby to conceal the scar!

For Maintenance,  Don't
Call This Guy!!  

As a probably deleterious result of all that "encouragement," I can't help myself.  I keep trying to fix things I shouldn't go near!  It's a curse, I suppose.  Just this past week, I snaked out a "choking" bathroom sink drain.  I discovered the "head" of the snake peeking out of the sink in an adjacent bathroom.  "How the hell did that happen?" I exclaimed.  (Sigh!)  The clogged sink eventually drained.  Divine intervention, maybe!!??

I can't imagine a major shift in my foolish DIY compulsion.  Call it cheapness, maybe it's quixotic, perhaps just the absurd notion that eventually I'll miraculously acquire a level of expertise from all those previous attempts!?  Ridiculous!...  And then there's the specter of aging limbs and their eventual worsening condition that'll force the end of my DIY fervor!  I'll post my medical and surgical history, charts, X-Rays...  just FYI!!  If you need me, I'll be upstairs plunging something...  or hammering...!  (Keep emergency numbers handy at all times!!)  

Humbly posted 02-16-15 -- Joel K.