Another Glamorous Evening

I came home last night to find a message from my condominium association, alerting me to the fact that my toilets are incessantly running and my neighbor suspects that my shoddy potties might be to blame for a leak in her utility room. I stopped by the neighbor’s place to introduce myself and apologize, but she wasn’t home. I hope she went to Home Depot to get stuff to build an ark, because given my plumbing prowess, this shit is never getting fixed.

And believe me, not for lack of effort. I called my dad to see if he could help me diagnose my toilet issues over the phone. These conversations always go super well, since Dad is an engineer and does not find my description of toilet parts very helpful. “The black thingy is sitting over the grey thingy, next to the tubey-thing and above the big enema-looking bulb. Eck, toilets are grody.”

Still, he tried to walk me through the process as patiently as possible. After ten minutes of poking around in the guest bathroom crapper trying to figure out how to lower the water level, he finally asked me if I saw a screw on the valve. “The valve? You mean the grey thingy? Oh yes, I see a screw! It’s got a note attached to it. It says, ‘adjust screw to control water level.’ Should I do that?” Dad just sighed.

Then it was on to the master toilet. This one did not have a grey-thingy, or an enema-looking bulb thing, so I knew we were in trouble. “Push down on the valve and move it a quarter turn counter-clockwise, then turn it back,” he suggested. The thing was not budging. “Dad, I’m pushing with my entire body weight and the black thingy is not bloody moving,” I muttered. “You shouldn’t have to push that hard,” my dad began, but was soon interrupted by the sound of the cap-thingy flying off the black-thingy and a geyser of toilet water erupting into my face.

“Arrrggghhh!” I gargled. “Dad, it won’t stop! It’s exploding! I can’t see! What do I do?!” I thought I might be on the verge of tears, but it’s hard to tell with a gallon of shitter-water gushing into your eye sockets. “Now Stephanie, you’re a college-educated girl, you should be able to handle this,” he said, calmly. We have the same alma mater, mind you, but by the time I was enrolled, I guess Miami wasn’t offering a course in commode-troubleshooting. He finally mentioned that there was a metal-thingy on the bottom of the toilet-thingy that shuts off the water-thingy (and no, I didn’t know that there was such a thing before. Bite me.)

Old Faithful subsided, but not before giving the walls, the floor, my clothes, my hair and my face a good glazing. Dad wanted to know what position the valve was in when the cap came off, but I didn't take good notes while I was busy trying not to drown. Needless to say, I will not be using the toilet in my master bathroom until I become plumbing-savvy or someone competent comes around to replace the black-thingy that’s attached to the hook-thingy by the chain-thingy. Stupid thingies.