Saratoga News

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Plumbing problems are best left to plumbers

By Dick Sparrer

Sorry, but I was a little late to work the other day--I had a bathroom fixture to break. Did I say break? I mean fix. You see, the toilet sprung a little leak a few weeks back ... just a drip from that doo-hickey on the bottom of the tank. And I had taken care of it right away; I put a bowl under the drip to catch the water.

But the water started to catch up to us the other night.

"I've emptied out that darn bowl three times today!" snapped my wife. "I don't think it will last through the night. We'll wake up to a lake on the bathroom floor."

"No problem," I said, exuding all the confidence of Bob Vila even if I did employ all the competence of Tim "The Toolman" Taylor. "I'll just shut off the water supply tonight, and I'll fix it before I go to work in the morning."

This is not a job I'd been looking forward to, so I'd been putting it off, of course. I had no real interest in crawling under that toilet.

"Oh, why don't we just call a plumber?" she asked, her question bruising my handymanhood.

"A plumber? For a drip?" I exclaimed. "You've got to be kidding!"

"Oh, yeah ... what could I have been thinking?" she asked sarcastically. "Why would I call a plumber to fix a leaky toilet?"

"That's right," I agreed. "Certainly you have confidence that I can fix a little leak."

"Nope," she said without any hesitation, "absolutely none."

"Listen," I said firmly, "no self-respecting husband is going to let his wife call a plumber to fix a leaky toilet--it's just not done! I certainly can fix a little leak. Hey, I've watched Bob Vila; I've listened to the Carey Brothers; I've watched the infomercials for plumbing made easy with 'Quick Wrench.' I know what I'm doing."

"Yeah, right," she said. "The only thing you know how to do around a toilet is ... "

"Hey, I'm handier than you may think," I interrupted. "I'll just get up a little early Monday morning, get out the tools and before you know it, no more drip."

"Right," she agreed, "it will be more like a steady stream!"

Ignoring her, I headed to the garage to get the tools ready for the next morning.

"Now what did I do with that crescent wrench?" I asked aloud.

"I think it's in the juniper bush in the back yard ... right where you threw it after you botched your last plumbing project." She was getting real pleasure out of this. So I wasn't about to tell her how easy this job really was going to be. This was going to be a piece of cake, because I knew exactly what was wrong and how to fix it. Boy, would she have to eat some humble pie. And she wasn't going to just flush this one away ... I wasn't about to let her forget how she lacked confidence in me, and how I repaired the fixture so quickly.

I could hardly wait for the alarm the next morning. I was like a kid on Christmas morning. Well, OK, crawling under a toilet looking for a leak hardly compares to crawling under a Christmas tree looking for presents, but you get the idea.

Anyway, I got up about 6:30 and went straight to my work. I started cranking and clanking and yanking on the pipes under the toilet.

She woke up about 7 and shook her head violently from one side to the other as she walked past the bathroom door.

Finally, I had the leak under control. No more squirt, no more stream, not even a drip. Of course, the toilet didn't work either, because I had to turn off the main water supply.

"Better call a plumber," I said meekly to the wife as I walked past her to the front door.

"What?" she asked. "I didn't quite hear you. Did you say call a plumber? For a little thing like a leaky toilet? What would Bob Vila say? What would the Carey Brothers say?"

"Very funny," I said. "I've got to go to work. Do you know where my shoe is?"

"Oh, I don't know, did you look out in the back yard?" she asked. "And maybe you'll find your wrench when you're out there."

And I thought a leaky toilet was annoying.