Typical....

From time to time it is necessary to repair a household item.  Usually this is due to one of the children and a projectile that was ….projected within the confines of a small room.  Often times items just wear out and need replacing and the job of Mr. Fixit usually falls into my lap.  Unfortunately, we in my family seem to suffer from some sort of affliction that causes repairs to take longer than normally necessary.  The extra time can be attributed to a second trip to the hardware store to fix the replacement part that broke during installation. 

This same pattern was displayed during my most recent repair man duties.  The toilet was leaking from under the tank.  My initial expert opinion led me to believe that the water line needed to be replaced.  Cue trip 1 to the hardware store.  10 minutes after returning home I had the line replaced, the floor dry and was about to enjoy a quite afternoon relaxing on the couch; alas the leak continued. 

At this point I realize that the leak is not in the water line but in the tank itself.  I thought it possible  that the seal for the fill valve had cracked and decided to disassemble it, clean it and put it back, just incase it could be fixed with the old Windows method (shutdown and reboot).   I should mention that this is a very small space the bathroom that my children use…..the male children…..the three young male children.  I spent the next 13 minutes with my nose two inches away from some …..unspeakable aromas while I took apart the necessary pieces, cleaned and reassembled them.  I would like to imagine that the close confines of the itty bitty room combined with the fumes I was breathing that caused the next incident.  All I was doing was helping the toilet out of a jam, I guess, and I used a little too much force.  We drove that car as far as we coul……sorry, I got side tracked.  In reality I just wasn't paying attention and counted too high.

"One righty tighty, two righty tighty, three righty ti…" SNAP!

I Broke the stem. 

One more trip to the hardware store; this time for an entire valve kit.  15 minutes after returning home I had the toilet flushing like a champ and without the embarrassing leak.  It just goes to show that I can fix anything twice; just let me break it first.

~Bibliotender