A Life Spent In Darkness, Then Death: Part Two

Here are the rest of the pictures from our plumbing adventure. In the first you can see the fancy flapperless system.
In the second, you see Jon kneeling before the throne like a proud parent. Honestly, I haven't spent that much time on my knees in front of a toilet since I quit drinking.
In the final picture you can see the tattered remains of my old - probably even older than I am - eco-hostile toilet, awaiting its final fate.

A Life Spent In Darkness, Then Death: Part One

Yesterday, as planned, Scott and I replaced the toilet in my downstairs bathroom.
While at Home Depot we ran through a checklist of all the things we'd need, and got to the question of whether or not I should get another supply line. We thought about getting one just in case, but ultimately - and foolishly - I decided against it. After all, I knew that I would end up being wrong no matter what I decided, and we left Home Depot fully expecting to have to retrun at least once.
Replacing a toilet is a pretty straightforward process.
Unless, of course, you happen to be Jon.
(Or Scott, for that matter. And it holds especially true if you're Jon and Scott.)
The first obstacle we encountered was the fact that the water supply absolutely would not shut off completely, thus the whole time we were working there was a constant flow of water pouring out of the supply line.
The second obstacle was actually removing the supply line from the tank, a task that ultimately proved impossible, and so we were soon on our way to buy that extra supply line that I didn't need. Fortunately it proved to be the only return trip we had to make to Home Depot.
Once we got back we simply removed the supply line from the supply itself, hauled the tank outside - not bothering to put down the plastic I'd bought for that purpose and dripping some black nastiness directly on the carpet - and removed the bowl.
There are two words to describe the site that greeted us when we removed the bowl: Dis. Gusting.
It was like a swatch of carpeting made entirely of mold.
With bugs living in it.
I removed the equally disgusting wax ring, and set to work on removing the "carpeting" with bleach.
Fortunately rotten sub-flooring wasn't an issue, as my sub-floor is concrete, and the mold's reach didn't extend beyond the surface of the tile floor.
Once I'd cleaned that up, and while still woozy from the bleach fumes, we got the new toilet put in place rather quickly, and it was time to bust out the caulking gun and seal it place on the floor.
Now, while on the surface Scott and I are grown men in our 30s, underneath it all we're really just 12 year-old boys.
Thus, the "caulk" jokes.
Not trusting my unsteady hands, I bowed to Scott's superior caulk-handling skills and let him spread caulk all over the place.
We continued in that vein - ugh, that's a terrible unintended pun - for quite some time, until finally Scott was finished working the caulk, and the time came for me to put my caulk away.
At that point I stood, caulk in hand, and said, sadly, "I don't know if I'll ever get to use my caulk again."
This prompted Scott to say, "Okay, you broke it. No more caulk jokes."
Still, I did end up throwing a couple of more comments into the caulk ring.
Finally it was time to test the toilet out. I was the first to break it in, and responded with a "Damn!" in response to how quickly, in contrast to the old toilet, the tank refilled.
Actually, the "tank" doesn't fill. I bought an eco-friendly, high-efficiency flushing toilet with a "Niagra" flapperless system.
Basically there's a basin inside that fills up with water, and when you flush, it simply tips the basin over, spilling out the water. The basin then snaps back into position and refills.
At least, that's what it does in theory.
When Scott took his turn breaking in the toilet he found that it wouldn't flush, as the tank hadn't refilled.
When we went back to pick up a new supply line, we bought one that had this "flood stop" component that we thought might put a stop to the water flow from the un-turn-offable water supply while we were working on installing the toilet.
It didn't, but it did, apparently, kick in after I flushed the toilet, preventing the tank from refilling. The only way to reset it is to disconnect the supply line and reconnect it.
At this point, now that the old toilet was disassembled and more easily accessible, Scott was able to remove the old supply line, and we attempted to put that on in place of the irritating flood stop version, but the new tank is situated considerably higher than the old one, so the old line wouldn't reach.
I'll be making a return trip to Home Depot this weekend to buy a regular one.
At one point I went outside to inspect the old toilet to see if I could find where it had been leaking. I didn't see any cracks, so I'm assuming it was leaking around the wax ring.
What I did see, though, was that the bottom of the bowl was teeming with the bugs who had been living in that darkness for who knows how long. I hit them hard with some bug spray, and summarized the bugs' existence to Scott as, "A life spent in darkness, then death."
In any case, here are some pictures from our plumbing adventure.
Fortunately we didn't think to take pictures until after I'd cleaned up the mold "carpet," so you'll at least be spared that nastiness.

Anyone Know What The Chinese Character For "Jon Can Suck It" Is?

Oh, right; I have a blog.
On Wednesday it occurred to Scott that if he put his back seats down we could probably fit the mower I was thinking about buying in his cars, so we decided to meet at Lowe’s to find out.
Turns out it did, so after that we had dinner at Chili’s, then headed to my house and unloaded and unpacked the mower.
That, of course, left the question of what to do with the (not-so) old mower. As mentioned, I’m too lazy to try to go through the effort of actually selling it, and Scott stated that he didn’t really need a mower, even a free one.
However, after I mentioned that the mower mulches, he decided he could use a free mower, and thus room was freed up in my tool shed for the new mower.
And that was pretty much the big excitement for the week, so despite the fact that I haven’t been doing much in the way of regular posts, it’s clear that you haven’t really been missing out.
Today I got up, sat around, showered, dressed, and headed out to the comic shop. From there it was off the barbershop to get a haircut, and then over to Target to do some grocery shopping that consisted primarily of buying stuff to drink and things to snack on.
When I got home I broke out the weed whacker to deal with the dandelion invasion. It probably would have been easier to just mow again, but a. i hadn’t actually charged my mower battery yet and b. it’s 93 degrees out, so I didn’t feel like toiling away too long under the brutal and punishing sun.
After that I made some lunch and watched some recorded TV, then tried, unsuccessfully, to take a nap. After that it was more recorded TV, and now this.
I probably shouldn’t complain about how thoroughly unexciting my life is, as I probably wouldn’t like having an exciting life, if for no other reason than that it would probably require a lot more effort than I’d be willing to put forth. But even so, there’s no getting around it: my life is boring as hell.

Exciting New Developments Department:
Of course, my life isn’t all tedium and malaise, as there have been a couple of new developments, that, relative to what the rest of my life is like, are kind of exciting.
The first one involves TV. Some time back Verizon introduced a feature to their DVRs that allows customers to access their DVRs remotely from any computer to do things like schedule recordings. Further, Verizon Wireless customers could even program their DVRs using their cell phones.
The drawback to this new feature was that it was only available to customers with Verizon’s multi-room DVR setup. Given that I only have the one set-top box, this meant that I was excluded from using the feature.
However, recently Verizon made the service available to all of their customers. I got great amusement from being a jackass and sitting in my recliner, the DVR’s remote just inches from my hand, and using my laptop to go online to schedule a recording.
Verizon went even a step further, making it possible for customers to program their DVRs with their cell phone regardless of their mobile carrier. Of course, once again, I’m excluded from using this feature, as there’s some other service the customers have to use in order to be able to access their DVRs from their phones.
Oh well.
The other “exciting” development is considerably less cool – remember that the Chinese character for “opportunity” is the same one for “crisis,” which goes a long way towards explaining why I don’t really crave excitement – and it involves my downstairs toilet.
Last night while making use of the facilities I noticed a rather large puddle on the floor near the toilet. It seemed to me that I would have remembered if my aim had been that bad for long enough to account for the volume of liquid, so I suspected something was up.
I cleaned up the mess and decided that I’d check in again later to see if the puddle reappeared. Sure enough, about a half an hour later, it had.
Getting down on my knees – which isn’t something I’ve had to do in the bathroom very often since I quit drinking – I did some inspecting and found that the water was seeping out through a crack in the seal between the toilet and the floor. At first I thought that I could just get some caulk and seal it back up, but then it occurred to me that even with the crack in the seal, water shouldn’t actually be leaking out anyway, which means that there’s something else broken somewhere inside.
I’ve watched enough home improvement shows to know that replacing a toilet is a fairly simple and straightforward process, but I’ve also been Jon long enough to know that nothing is ever simple and straightforward, so I set aside any plans for buying a new toilet and engaging in a do it yourself project today and simply shut off the water supply and threw a towel around the base.
After all, I have a friend who’s always willing to help and who recently made some toilet repairs of his own.
(Interested in engaging in a project on Wednesday, Scott?)
I really should just replace all three of my toilets, given how old and eco-hostile they are, but eventually I want to do some major renovations and don’t really want to do everything piecemeal.
This is why, despite the fact that I would really like to get a bigger refrigerator with an ice and filtered water dispenser on the front, and I’ve seen some really good deals, I have not done so as of yet. I’d like to do all of the kitchen remodeling in one shot and get matching appliances at that time. I may eventually change my mind on that, though, as I really could use more freezer space.
Anyway, those are the two exciting developments in my life.

$704.96

On Monday morning I woke up to find that I was still very tired, I had a mild headache, I was groggy, and I really didn't want to go to work.
I thought about calling in sick. Then I thought about it some more.
And some more.
Meanwhile, being of two minds on the subject, I got up and began going through all the motions of getting ready for work, all the while the part of my brain that wanted nothing more than to call in and then climb back into bed screaming, "No! What are you doing?"
While I was in the shower, to quiet that part of my brain, I worked out an arrangement.
"If you go in to work today, we'll take Friday off."
"And the following Monday," that part of my brain added.
"Okay, and the following Monday," I agreed.
"And my birthday."
"Fine."
So with internal detente achieved, I went in to work on Monday.
(The tiredness and grogginess never went away as the day wore on; I ended up going to bed before 8:00 that night. I was sitting at the computer struggling to say awake, and finally decided, "I can go to bed now if I want; I don't have to impress anyone with my ability to not go to bed really early.")
Anyway, the point is that I took today and Monday off and will be taking my birthday off as well.
I took the opportunity today to do do all of my usual Saturday morning stuff, such as going to the comic shop and grocery shopping. I also had to go to the eye doctor to pick up a new set of lenses.
(When I stopped at Best Buy after my eye appointment I used the bathroom and, upon seeing my reflection in the mirror, noticed that I appeared to be in the early stages of becoming a zombie; the skin under eyes was a sickly, jaundiced shade of yellow. At first I was baffled, but then realized that it was the run-off from the dye the doctor had put in my eyes to check out the fit of the lenses.)
At Target I discovered that Friday afternoons are apparently busier than Saturday mornings, and I ended up in line behind a woman buying four carts' worth of groceries, totalling $704.96. I'm guessing, based on the conversation she was having with the cashier, and given the sheer volume of groceries, that the woman was shopping for some sort of institution. Given the behavior of the two teenage girls with her, I'm going to guess that it was St. Cecelia's Home For Incessantly Giggling Girls.
It actually took the woman, the two girls, and the Target employee helping to wrangle the fully-laden carts, so long to get everything moving that I managed to pay for all of my groceries and get to my car before they got to theirs.
Given that their car was the sort of full-sized van favored by institutions, my suspicions about the nature of the shopping would seem to be confirmed.
(Evidently the woman shops like that every week; the exhausted cashier who rang it all up, and appeared to know her said to her, "I love you, but next week don't come through my line.")
After I finished shopping I came home and did some minor plumbing work, replacing the actuator valves on two of my toilets, as in one toilet the existing valve wasn't sealing at all, and in the other it wasn't sealing quite enough.
In the parking lot at Target I'd seen a car with a McCain/Palin bumper sticker that said "Endorsed by Joe the Plumber."
Naturally I'd rolled my eyes, but after making the repairs to my toilets I thought, "Hey, at this point I'm as much of a plumber as that jackass ever was, and, like him, my name isn't Joe, so where's my fifteen minutes of fame?"
(Considers going off on a lengthy rant, decides that the ultimate point of the rant is that people are stupid and probably ought to get punched in the head more often than they do, decides not to bother with the rant.)
After accomplishing that it was time head to the Chiropractor and get cracked. After he finished with all of the bone-popping and neck-cracking, he helped me sit up, then said, "Happy birthday." I thanked him, but pointed out that my birthday isn't for ten days. He said, "Oh, we've got it wrong, then."
However, if the world worked more like I would like it to, today would have been my dad's 74th birthday.
Happy birthday, dad.
Apart from the more unselfish reasons for wishing that he were around to get another year older, as I was walking around in Home Depot today - where I'd gone to pick up the toilet parts - I found myself once again wishing that he were still alive so that I could put him to work on my house.
*Sigh*
Anyway, that was pretty much my day off.