Potty Talk

The downstairs toilet is acting up again, same one that exploded last November, flooding our downstairs with effluent of such a sublime nature that the entire place had to be striped to the bare cement by men in respirators and white hazmat suits. We are all suffering from post sewer stress syndrome, any sound that remotely resembles gurgling is likely to send to me running to the bathroom as fast as my old arthritic knees will allow to see if we got us another well breech.

Last night while ignoring the family on the sofa I heard such a noise, and did in fact jump over the back of the sofa and into the bathroom to find.. nothing was happening. But I did manage to land funny on my foot sending intense feelings of discomfort up my leg. AS expected the injured foot is on the other leg from the one that’s currently experiencing a flare of arthritis, it’s swollen up like a grapefruit and is hot to the touch. Good news is, I won’t be limping anymore, I’ll be waddling.

I no sooner got comfy when I heard the gurgling sound again, and again bolted, only this time only about half way, as I started complaining about my foot, then my knee and finally, remarked something about the male offspring of a dog, using technical terms and crawled back to the sofa. My wife, bless her heart, thought I had finally had the breakdown she’s been expecting. At the third gurgle I realized that the sound was coming from somewhere closer to me, somewhere in the very room and somewhere very very near my daughter.

When the sound happened again I realized it was coming from my daughter, who was smiling about it. After yesterdays conversations, I don’t want know and didn’t ask. Mrs S interpreted this to mean I was afraid to ask and as such, should be told anyway. “Lolo drank some Metamucil today. Berry flavored, just like kool-aide.” I looked over at her. She grinned back at me, like drinking that stuff is an accomplishment. “Berry flavored huh?” “Yeah, it’s like kool-aide. For the first 30 seconds, then it’s like cement once the stuff absorbs the water. You want that to happen in your gut, not in the glass.”

So the sounds I heard were the internal processing of a 13 year girl as here little stomach issue worked to resolve itself. See yesterdays post for the rather gruesome details.

The potty down stairs has never been same since the “incident”. For one thing, no one trusts it. After having raw sewage course through your house you do get a little jumpy about indoor plumbing. A few weeks ago I tweeted about how much I enjoy going to the freezer to get ice, only to find 5 ice trays in the freezer, each with one cube left. The old, “if I didn’t take the last one I don’t have to replace it” theory. I’ve used it plenty myself when it comes to milk and dog food. The easy answer for this would be to get an ice maker. Fact is, our refer is plumbed for one, we’ve just never hooked it up. Matter of fact we tossed out the entire assembly because neither one of us, with a straight face, can say we trust ice makers. Every person in our family, ourselves included has a story about an icemaker causing issues due to leaking or freezing or both, which in more than one example resulted in serious structural damage.

The potty is the same thing, only where an ice maker is optional, city code prohibits the installation of an outhouse, which personally I think is much more stable sewage solution, and these days could probably be heated eliminating the fear of frozen ass rings in Minnesota winter.

The new issues with the potty is the interior workings are not working so well. When I put the stool back over the honey hole and rehooked her up to the water supply last December, the lift pipe had grown about an inch in the time I had moved it off the drainpipe and into the shower. This meant that, when you put the top back on, the water would run and drain into the overflow tube. No one is going to die from this so I didn’t worry too much about it. I found an old razor in the drawer and wedged it under the lid and that seemed to solve the problem.

Solved it for me. When Mrs S when to put the vase and candle back on the lid.. this is the guest bath afterall, the candle slid off causing her to look under the lid and once again.. we had to talk. Yikes.

She put in a work order to “fix it right” and put it on urgent pile. I review the urgent pile on the 31^st of every month and plan my chores accordingly. May had 31 days so I got the order, reviewed and was able to squeeze it into the schedule the second week of July, just after the All Star Game, but before Burn Notice started up again. Fixing it right meant that I’d have to tear apart the tank and go to the hardware store and buy new potty innards. No problem-o. Except, when I pulled apart the can I saw that the uplift tube was adjustable, maybe I wouldn’t have to go to the Hardware store. Baptist Churches and Hardware stores, no places for middle-aged Jewish guys wearing Yankee hats. I like to avoid them because I don’t know what any of the stuff in there is. I don’t really want to know.

Turns out the adjustment isn’t easy, you have to twist and pull and push to get the thing past the little locking mechanism, and at some point I had to use the “convincer” to make it compress. Mrs S keeps a hammer in junk drawer, it’s the only place where I can reliably find one. I got the hammer, pounded the thing down a bit, well more than a bit, and went to put it back in. I noticed that I’d probably have to explain the indentation from the bottom of the tube on the kitchen table. Save that for a later date.

Put the tube back in the potty. Where before the top of the tube was just over flush with the rim of the tank, I now how about 4 inches to spare. Problem solved, unless you’re flushing anything more than straight liquid. Good news is, the tank sure fills fast. I rehooked up the water, refixed the leaks as this thing ALWAYS leaks and went on my way. This week I learned that the tank doesn’t fill at all unless you pull of the lid and jiggle the tube. My repair lasted 33 days. Mrs S wants it fixed at once. I think, jiggling isn’t so bad, it’s what the software people call a “training issue”,  once you know you have to do it, it becomes second nature. Fact is, my warranties only last 30 days so this would be another work order.

Look for an update in September on how this is going.