Ways to make the mother explode #1

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 24 December 2009 06:06:45

IMG_7525 Breaking the main toilet of the house on Christmas Eve has potential to cause fireworks, particularly when various members of the extended family will be descending upon us in less than 24 hours. The brother was responsible for the flush that broke the camel's back, and it was a scene somewhat like the one pictured above that I awoke to. The main difference was that if the water was turned on, there was water spurting out of various places in the plastic bits... My brother was working from home today, not bludging like myself, so it fell to me to come up with a plan for having the toilet fixed by the time the mother arrived home from work. It seemed unlikely that we'd be able to get a plumber at such short notice (unless we paid $$$$$) so I called a plumbing supplies company to see if it was something we could do ourselves. The man I spoke to seemed to think it would not be a big deal to fix. When it got to the brother's lunch break time, we went for a drive to the plumbing supplies place. I explained to the guy what I was after and it soon became apparent that the fix would not be as simple as I had hoped (I thought it'd be nice if the part could be replaced like a toner cartridge or a sim card...). Luckily I had taken photos and could point to where the water was coming out. This proved to be more helpful than the part number, which I had written down and thought would be the most useful information. They didn't have the whole assembly, but they had a spare parts/repair kit which they were fairly sure would do the job. $22.85. Bargain. And they gave me a receipt and said to bring it back if it was wrong - that was pretty nice of them - it was all packaged up and it's not the sort of thing I'd expect to return in the event of me selecting the wrong item. Anyway, I was going to start working on it when the brother had finished work because I'd never done toilet repairs before and wanted moral support. But the father arrived home early so I set him to work instead. Apparently it was quite a tricky job... and it is now forbidden to break the toilet on Christmas Eve. Dad's not sure that he's fixed it, but there's a part that was in there that looks broken and it has been replaced and the toilet is now behaving itself. But if anyone else's toilet breaks tomorrow, I have a few other spare parts in my kit so just give me a yell. It's probably better if someone else installs it though.