Noah...I Feel Your Pain
Attention all house-residing women: Do you know how to shut the water off? I'm sure there are a few males out there who are clueless, but they would never in a million years admit it. I have acquired this one bit of knowledge within the past few days in the face of sheer emergent necessity. My toilet had been somewhat uncooperative over the last few weeks but guess it decided to really get rebellious a few days ago. In all honesty there was nothing... nada... zilch in there to plug it up. I had just cleaned it, flushed the blue Vanish remnants, and the water started to rise. I went into "wiggle the handle" mode, which has worked quite well in the past. The water soon was approaching the spillover level and I was getting nervous.
Here I had just had this good day where I went to a movie with some friends (nothing beats the theater movies ..so much more enjoyable than watching them at home) had a nice dinner and then this disaster. Grrr!!!!! It's pushing 11:00 p.m. and nearly everyone in town is sleeping. I did try to turn off the faucet thingamajig down on the floor at the base of the toilet but the stupid thing wouldn't budge. I ended up using pliers to try to get a better grip and broke the thing all to hell.
In the meantime I was racking my brain trying to remember the way my father showed me to turn off the water in the basement should the need ever arise. Well this was some time ago and...well... you know how it is. If you don't have to do it you just sort of forget it. Maybe some people have household disaster drills where various things that can go wrong are simulated. That would be the smart way!
To make a long story short...I finally figured out how to shut the water off in my cobweb filled, very dark, scary basement after about 15 minutes of complete panic. The bathroom floor had a good inch plus of standing water and I had grabbed every single towel, blanket, rug that wasn't tacked down, and a few t-shirts and sweatshirts to help soak it up and prevent the flood from overtaking the kitchen. What a mess!! And I couldn't turn the water back on to do any laundry so I hung everthing up outside. The next day I was able to fix the toilet for less than five dollars, did lots and lots of laundry, and things were back to normal. Two good things came from it: 1) I know how to shut my water off and will never, ever, forget again and 2) I have the cleanest bathroom floor in town!
Here I had just had this good day where I went to a movie with some friends (nothing beats the theater movies ..so much more enjoyable than watching them at home) had a nice dinner and then this disaster. Grrr!!!!! It's pushing 11:00 p.m. and nearly everyone in town is sleeping. I did try to turn off the faucet thingamajig down on the floor at the base of the toilet but the stupid thing wouldn't budge. I ended up using pliers to try to get a better grip and broke the thing all to hell.
In the meantime I was racking my brain trying to remember the way my father showed me to turn off the water in the basement should the need ever arise. Well this was some time ago and...well... you know how it is. If you don't have to do it you just sort of forget it. Maybe some people have household disaster drills where various things that can go wrong are simulated. That would be the smart way!
To make a long story short...I finally figured out how to shut the water off in my cobweb filled, very dark, scary basement after about 15 minutes of complete panic. The bathroom floor had a good inch plus of standing water and I had grabbed every single towel, blanket, rug that wasn't tacked down, and a few t-shirts and sweatshirts to help soak it up and prevent the flood from overtaking the kitchen. What a mess!! And I couldn't turn the water back on to do any laundry so I hung everthing up outside. The next day I was able to fix the toilet for less than five dollars, did lots and lots of laundry, and things were back to normal. Two good things came from it: 1) I know how to shut my water off and will never, ever, forget again and 2) I have the cleanest bathroom floor in town!
posted by Kathleen at 3:40 AM
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