Waterworks

I usually don’t post to this blog on Wednesday evenings because I’m at the Ruth Ellis Center until late. This place offers a large array of services for LGBTQ youth, including a meal on Wednesdays. The youth are told it’s time to leave at 8:30 and it can take me 15 to 20 minute more before the kitchen is clean enough for me to leave. Then it’s a half-hour drive home.

At about 6:50 tonight the manager told me we’re closing early. It wasn’t something planned. We’ve closed early in the past, such as after one or more youth get into a fight and tempers all around become heated. Well, OK. I’ll drop my plans to wash big bowls and pots, and turn my efforts to putting the food away.

About five minutes later another staff person said we’re closing, don’t bother with the trash. Well, OK. I put a couple more things away and turned to start the dishwasher. A third staff person came by and said, leave it.

This time I asked what’s going on. The answer: Police are outside and want the building evacuated. Someone had called in a threat to the building.

Oh.

I got my coat and left, with the staff right behind me.



Perhaps two months ago the toilet in my main bathroom started whistling. It would produce a high sustained note. The first time I heard it I wondered what could be making the noise. Hmm… it was loudest in the bathroom. But I didn’t have any devices in there that would make such a noise. The noise seemed loudest towards the toilet. So I flushed it.

The noise stopped. Huh?

I Googled whistling toilets. And yeah, it had an answer. It said that the whistling is caused by worn out mechanical stuff in the tank and it’s a sign the stuff should be replaced. It did not say which gizmo under which circumstances was caused to vibrate though which mechanism. So beyond “worn parts” I don’t know what causes the noise.

The noise appeared a couple times while I decided what I wanted to do. Whether because of stuff in my water or because a failure of the porcelain finish (or both), the bowl was heavily stained. I was already having issues with the flush mechanism not producing a full flush unless I held the handle down.

So I decided I wanted to get rid of it, even though it was new when the bathroom was remodeled 9 years ago.

I called the home improvement guy who had done that bathroom work. It took a few days for him to call me back, though I got a response when, the next time the whistling happened, I called him and held the phone up to the toilet. Even then it took a couple days for him to check the situation. He took pictures with his phone to send to the company. He had never seen one look so bad. There were delays while he waited for an official response, which never came. The unofficial response was it’s more than five years old. It’s out of warranty. He gave me a quote, but that was based on also doing an expensive renovation of the garage. I decided a garage doesn’t need a renovation that expensive.

The delays got to the point where I went to a big box home improvement store. Signs in the toilet section said let us do the installation. I asked about it. The employee took me over to a store computer where he filled out a request form. He handed me a sheet, which said I should get a call from them in two days. It has now been almost two weeks and I haven’t gotten a call.

So, back to calling the home improvement guy. In the meantime the whistling is becoming more frequent. And started waking me up. Yeah, it was loud enough that it could rouse me from my slumbers even with the bathroom and bedroom doors closed. I was getting annoyed. On occasion I would yank the lid off the tank and slam it onto the seat. When I did what I needed to stop the noise I would slam the lid back in place. I had visions of taking a sledgehammer to it. But one needs a toilet.

Yeah, there is another one in the house. I only use it when I absolutely have to. And right now it doesn’t work well either.

So last Friday I and the home improvement guy agreed on a price and that I was next. Monday morning! He bought a replacement (definitely a different brand) over the weekend. Sunday morning the toilet woke me at 6:30. Monday morning the toilet woke me at 4:00. He called that morning. The roads were slippery. He wasn’t going out. I was grumpy. Tuesday morning he called. Was my street plowed yet? No. Well, then he couldn’t come because he wouldn’t be allowed to park his truck and trailer in the street. It was too long to park in my driveway.

The toilet whistled again during the day on Tuesday. It seemed to whistle if I hadn’t flushed in 4 hours. When I cam home after bell rehearsal it was whistling. That was enough. I yanked off the lid, jerked the mechanism, and slammed the lid on again.

And cracked the tank.

Yeah, some water ran onto the floor. I quickly turned the water off and flushed it to empty the tank. I got out the sponge mop and set to work wiping up the water (there wasn’t much). Along the way I picked up a piece of porcelain and it sliced my thumb. It took an hour to stop the bleeding. Only a quarter inch wound.

The crew came this morning to replace it. He had said it might take two hours. I had told him I had to leave in one. To my surprise he was finished before I had to go.

I watched the boss guy and his assistant carry the old toilet out to the garage. A few minutes later I heard something breaking. I went out to look. The assistant had the old toilet in a box and was breaking it up so it wouldn’t be so bulky to transport or dispose. I told him, man, I wanted that job. He didn’t give me the hammer.

I was gone today from 9:45 this morning to 7:45 this evening. The day included lunch with my friend and debate partner. He enjoyed this story (parts he had heard before). And he rejoiced with me it is over.

There was no whistling when I came home. And it’s been a quiet evening.