A very funny story part 2

“So, what’s the problem with your toilet?” my home teacher asked me as we walked down the hall at church the next day.

“Well, I broke the toilet floatie off last night,” I explained.

“We’ll come over around 1 and see what we can do to fix it,” he said. “I have to be honest though. I don’t know anything about plumbing.”

“That’s okay. At least you can try,” I said.

Only a few hours later I got home from church, slightly later than usual, and saw my home teacher and his roommate bent over our toilet. They moved parts here and there, sent me to the neighbor’s house to borrow some tools and pretty soon had it close to working order. However, they discovered another piece below the bowl that was cracked. Without it, the toilet wasn’t going to work.

“It looks like you’re going to need that part,” one of them said, holding it up. “If you take it down to Home Depot and show it to them, I’m sure they can probably help you figure out what piece you need.”

“I think we’re going to wait and let our landlord take care of this tomorrow,” the Bibliophile said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Thanks so much for coming over to help us.”

Now we were really in trouble because our toilet was completely out of order. The cracked piece made it so whenever you turned the valve on, it sprayed water everywhere. That’s just great, I thought to myself. However, salvation was closer than I thought. My sister and her husband were coming to Salt Lake City that day to have dinner with some of my brother-in-law's family since his parents were visiting from out of town. Perhaps he wouldn't mind helping out. . .

*****

“Show me what part is the problem,” my brother-in-law instructed after arriving at my house.

I looked in the toilet tank, but I hadn’t paying much attention when my home teachers put the part back in. “I’m really not sure,” I said, glancing in. “I wasn’t watching when they put it back.”

My brother-in-law turned the valve on, and water started leaking from the left side of the toilet.

“Ah,” he said, shutting the valve off again. He pulled off the part. “It looks like this piece is cracked. It will only take about 15 minutes to fix this. All you need to do is take it down to Home Depot, show them the part, and they can help you get what you need.”

I chewed on my bottom lip. Another entire day without a toilet? Not on your life! “I know it’s Sunday and all, but do you think I could ever just run down there right now and find the part I need?” I suggested.

“Actually I have a better idea. Why don’t you write down the directions for me, and I will make a quick run down there,” my brother-in-law said.

I ran into the kitchen, grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down the directions. I handed the paper to him. “It’s really easy to find. I’m sure you shouldn’t have a problem," I told him.

Half an hour later I heard the welcome sounds of someone bounding down the steps. My brother-in-law came into the apartment and headed straight for the bathroom. Fifteen minutes later I heard a sound I never would have thought would make me so happy: the toilet flushed! Praise be!!

“It looks like it’s working just fine,” my brother-in-law said, flushing the toilet a few times just for good measure.

“My hero!” I yelled, as I raced from the living room into the bathroom. “Thank you so much! It feels good to know we have a working toilet again!”

“Yeah, I know. A toilet is kind of a necessity,” he said, smiling, then he started rounding up his kids so they could head home. Thank goodness for men who are willing to help you out and for brothers-in-law who visit at just the right time!

If nothing else, this experience proved to me that I am NOT a helpless female. Okay, maybe in certain circumstances I'm helpless, but at least I know who I can turn to for help. . . I also learned a little bit about plumbing in the deal, so that's a good thing, right?! (As a side note, my landlord never did call about the message I left on his phone informing him of the broken toilet. I took money off our rent that month to pay for the toilet parts and the bother of having to fix it ourselves. My landlord never said a word about it.)

A very funny story part 1

Okay faithful blog readers. Today I'm going to do something a little different. Instead of me prattling on about my views on some random subject, I'd like to share a story with you. This is a (slightly) dramatized version of an event that happened two years ago. I wrote it in a letter to my brother while he was on his mission, mostly to be funny and to do something different. I was thinking about it today and decided it was too good to keep to myself any longer. Enjoy! (P.S. I realize this entry is super long and this is only the first half of the story. I'll be posting the second one soon.)

Snap!

I looked in horror at the toilet floatie in my hand. In an effort to stop it from overflowing I had reached in to pull the floatie up, a trick my mom assured me would stop an overflow. What she didn’t mention was the possibility that it could break off. The water level was rising dangerously close to the edge of the bowl. I dived down and quickly turned the valve off, effectively stopping the flood. However, my trouble had now tripled with such an essential part of the toilet broken off.

I shuffled into bedroom where my roommate, the Bibliophile, was laying on her bed reading. I held up the floatie, a sheepish look on my face.

She looked up. “Well, that’s not so good,” she said before burying her head in her book again.

At that moment, I heard the secret agent music my phone makes only when my parents called. I raced into the living room to answer it.

It was the exactly the person I might have wanted to talk to at that very moment: Dad.

“Can I open my package now?” he asked.

I had mailed him a Father’s Day package earlier that week, and ever since he received it, he couldn't resist calling to ask if he could open it, in jest of course.

“Well, it’s only about 12 more hours until you can open it for real, but if you absolutely can’t wait that long, you can open it now, I suppose,” I said, laughing. This was the third call I received on the subject in only 24 hours. In a more serious tone, because I was still traumatized by it, I said, “Dad, I just broke the floatie for my toilet off. What do I do?”

In typical Dad style he decided to lighten the mood by teasing me. His reply was, “Good work, mighty muscles. No more gym for you.”

“Dad,” I said, rolling my eyes. “This has nothing whatsoever to do with my gym attendance. I think it has more to do with a corroded piece on the toilet. You should see how bad it looks in the tank. It’s nasty!”

I was further embarrassed by the fact that the bowl was not empty. I fdidn't feel I could possibly ask anybody to fix it until it was empty. Dad instructed me to try flushing it, since the reserve on the tank was full. Once I flushed, I had to turn the valve back on until the reserve was full and then stop the water once it reached the fill line.

“Well, at least it’s workable,” Dad said.

Dad decided he could make it another 12 hours before opening his package, although he did threaten to stay up until midnight and open it at 12:01. I got off the phone and immediately dialed my landlord, who refuses to answer his phone on the weekends, and of course, this was no exception. I tried the maintenance man and got a message saying his phone was off or out of the area. Just my luck!

I wanted to commiserate with someone, so I walked back into my bedroom. The Bibliophile's only comment to all this drama was, “Can I go back to reading my book?”

I looked at her aghast. “How can you read?! We are in crisis here!” I said.

She said, “We are not in crisis. The toilet is still workable.”

I needed something more than this brush off of my frustration, so I went upstairs to see my neighbor who was sitting on the porch studying for her test on Monday. She’s somewhat similar to me in personality, so I knew she would understand where I was coming from. “Looks like this is another entry for Tammy’s Wall of Shame,” I said, shaking my head.

She looked at me then shook her head. “Tammy, you do not have a Wall of Shame. This was an accident.”

I buried my face in my hands. “But it’s a really embarrassing one. I can’t believe I did that!”

Honestly, if you’re a girl and something like this happens, the best possible medicine is to talk about it with someone else. I chatted with that neighbor for a few minutes and then her roommate, also a good friend of mine, came home, so I had to fill her in on the situation. She shared my frustration as well.

I walked back downstairs and was just finishing my supper (a simple sandwich and fruit cup – it was a Saturday night – who feels like cooking then, especially while in the midst of crisis?) when my phone rang again. It was Mom. She insisted that I needed to get this taken care of and suggested I call everyone from my home teachers to the National Guard to come fix it, if my landlord couldn’t be responsible. She finally settled on my cousin.

“Do you want to call or should I?” she said.

“You can call him. He responds better to you than me,” I said. “I guess I will make a run down to Lowe’s so I can get the parts we’ll need to fix it.”

My next challenge: did I need to economy or the deluxe kit? A question I should surely pose to my mother, I decided. Her answer: call my cousin, so I did.

He was coming to Sandy to have dinner with his parents the next day, so he was willing to fix it, but he cautioned, “A toilet is really a necessity, you know, so I think you should try to have your home teachers or your bishop come do it.”

Okay fine. I called the Bibliophile. Mind you, when something like this happens, she is usually the first one on the phone raging at our landlord to get it fixed immediately, but this time, she was pretty blasé about everything which I found slightly shocking.

“Do you still have our home teachers' numbers in your phone?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Can you call then to see if they will fix out toilet for us tonight?” I asked. “I’m at Lowe’s right now buying a kit so we can fix it.”

“Okay, I guess I can do that,” she said. “Why aren’t you waiting until Monday so Ray can take care of it? It’s his responsibility”

“I know it is, but I also know that because he’s irresponsible, as usual, we’re the ones who have to suffer, and I want to get this taken care of,” I said.

Our home teacher didn’t answer his phone. It looked like we would have to wait until the next day for any sort of resolution. Boy it was going to be a fun night. . .

To be continued (until the next entry. . .)

So satisfying!

Today I am at home to Idaho for a quick overnight trip. I came for two main reasons: to meet my brand new beautiful niece, whom I hadn't seen yet and to sooth ruffled feathers. Well, the soothing thing didn't quite pan out (the person whom I was pacifying ended up not coming), but it's been fun to meet that beautiful baby girl! I am such an idiot and forgot my camera, so I don't have any pictures to post, but I will soon, believe me!

I should explain that coming home to my parents' house is not really a vacation experience; mostly it means another set of hands to help get stuff done, which my mom loves! I don't mind helping. One of the tasks my parents need assistance with was clearing our garden in the backyard so they can get it ready to replant. While my father's back is slowly improving from the herniated discs, he's still not anywhere near the level where he was before. He needs extra help whether he'll admit it or not!

My sister-in-law and I went out there and worked for about 45 minutes while my parents were taking care of somewhere else. It turned out we were doing things the hard way and clearing a lot more in depth than my dad needed. He helped us simplify the process and within about an hour, we had things mostly done. I could tell it was difficult for him to supervise rather than do it himself, but he did well with it. Again, if I had my camera I would post pictures of our handiwork here, but since I don't, you'll just have to use your imagination.

I had forgotten how satisfying it is to get out and work in the dirt like that. And when I say work, I mean to do actual physical labor, to get your hands dirty. It felt so satisfying. As I write this, I can look out the window into the backyard and see our handiwork, and it makes me smile! I may be slightly sore tomorrow since I don't do this kind of thing on a regular basis, but it's so worth it to me for how satisfied I feel.

It's likely that tonight I'm going to be helping my mom finish making freezer jam, which will also be great! I don't know how to do it, but there's no time like the present to learn! And I will reap the benefits once it's finished, which is just an added bonus!