Early Saturday morning – 1:45 am
Ahh, the sheer joy of rebuilding one's own toilet tank!
Last Thursday night, I missed work because I was waiting for my landlady's worthless, rude, sorry husband to get over here and fix a leaking shut-off valve. When I came home from work Thursday morning, my apartment was again flooded. I called my landlady at nine o'clock that morning, and it wasn’t until 10:24PM when her husband finally showed up to fix the damn thing.
He wasn't happy at all to be here, and I wasn't a damn bit happy to have the rude dude in my house!
He replaced the shutoff valve, but that still didn't fix my problem. I told him that the tank needed to be rebuilt, but of course, he being the expert, blew my suggestion off.
So, I went down to Home Depot and bought a rebuild kit myself, and undertook to replace it, myself. Now, there are only two bolts that hold a toilet tank onto the bowl. Of course, the first one came off with no problems, the second one however, may require a cutting torch as it is so thoroughly rusted into place! As of this writing, I am waiting for the oil to soak into the threads and hopefully, loosen it a bit.
Yes, I work at night and am a day sleeper, that's why I am doing this at 1:00AM.
But, it just goes to show you, that every DIY project will come down to one damn stuck bolt, and it will drive you to the gates of mental HELL! I just want my toilet fixed, and I will get it fixed! That sorry husband of my landlady should have done this already, but he's a putz.
My landlady is a beautiful Korean woman, and I mean, she is a looker, buds! Now, here is this old pot-bellied, foul-tempered geezer with a nasty attitude, and he is married to the Goddess of Pusan.
Hell, I can't even get a date with the pimply-faced old fat girl that works down at the Sonic! I've asked her - she turned me down! Ha! I'm no Prince Henry myself, but I guess nobody ever said love was fair. Anyway, that's another subject.
But it just goes to show you that any time you undertake a project to do yourself, it starts with the thought "Well, today I'm gonna..." Guess what, Poppie? You may or you may not…depending on how many rusted bolts you encounter!
3:39 am
Guys,
Having worked in a machine shop under the tutelage of Master Machinist Johnny, I learned that sometimes you just have to apply brute force to get the job done! In the case of my toilet tank, I simply took a pair of Vise-Grips, and rocked the damn bolt back and forth until the head snapped off. I then took the tank to a car wash and cleaned it inside and out, and I am now ready to put it all together.
Back in the machine shop days, we once had a big drive shaft from some industrial piece of machinery that had a huge U-joint that we could not get out of the yoke for anything. Johnny said "Let me get my oilfield wrench, I'll get it out of there!"
He then proceeded to fire up his acetylene torch, and although he only had to cut two members of the joint to extract it, he was pissed, and he proceeded to wash the entire U-joint away with his torch! There was so much molten metal flying that he started three fires in the shop, which I went around stamping out, while he continued to blast away.
I was stomping and ducking molten metal at the same time, and Johnny just stayed on that U-joint, like a man possessed!
When he was finished, there was nothing left of that U-joint but the end caps, metal fume, and smoke. Johnny turned off his torch, looked at me with that impish grin of his, and said with the emphasis of a victor: "I sent it to HELL!" I'm pretty sure that he did send it to hell, there was nothing left. Vaporized! Anyway, that was an amusing moment.
I am now ready to re-install my newly built toilet tank, and then I will have my facilities back in order. Dammit, boy!
6:27 am
Got the toilet tank all rebuilt, got everything back together, all connections are made, nothing is too tight or too loose, now all I have to do is turn the water on, and adjust the float valve. But, after all my labor, about 6 hour’s worth, I decided to sit down and have a beer before I power it up.
I have always used 2000 Flushes toilet tank cleaner. This is great stuff until it gets all over your hands! I have never observed a more effective staining agent in my life. Pure hydrochloric acid will not get it out of your skin. So now, my hands are all blue.
I believe I have a functional toilet once again, and that is a very good thing! I'll tell you, guys, when you don't have a working toilet in your house, it makes for a lot of problems. We take it for granted that we can just go use the potty, but let that pig break down, now what are you going to do?
Not a good situation to be in!
I'll let y'all know the final outcome...
Edward Bluehands
7:13 am
My newly rebuilt toilet works beautifully, there's not a single leak anywhere. My toilet will never flood my apartment again! That SOB who was out here the other night should have fixed this, but no….Ol' Mikie fixed it!
They take your rent money, but they don't want to do a damn thing to fix their busted crap! Mikie improved the quality of his life today, because I can stand on my own two feet, and get the job done!
That pot-bellied geezer is not allowed in my house ever again! His wife can come over any time she wants, but that old fat jackass needs to stay away from my door. If he doesn't like having to get out and work at night, then he needs to find another occupation!
As for me, I have another skill to add to my resume...can rebuild toilets! Ha!
Mike's Musings...
Mike the Plumber I am Not
Ed. Note: Mike had a plumbing leak the other night that he took upon himself to fix. Here are his e-mails from that six hour ordeal.
