I've found that being
“retired” doesn't mean that I'm retired from fixing things around
the house.
The other day I
noticed a dripping sound coming from the bathroom faucet, so I told
myself, Self, one of these days, you've got to fix that! I
knew it wasn't going to be easy, but then nothing is these days.
After
putting it off as long as I could, I gathered some tools and tried to
shut off the water to the sink. I laid down on the floor, reached
up, turned the handle on the cold water shutoff valve and was
rewarded with a spray of water, most of which went down the sleeve of
my shirt into my armpit. I frantically opened the valve back up and
the spray stopped. I realized that the packing had dried out over the
years and the packing nut had to be tightened, so I slowly creaked up
to my feet, ( laying down is pretty easy, it's getting up that's
hard!) and went out to the shop for an adjustable wrench.
I
finally got the packing nuts tightened on both valves and shut them
off. I intended to replace the washers or O rings, or whatever it
took to stop the faucet from dripping. I removed the handle and tried
to loosen the screw underneath. It was badly corroded and wouldn't
turn. The whole faucet was in pretty bad shape, so instead of taking
the chance of breaking something important, and spraying water all
over the bathroom, I decided to get a whole new faucet set.
I
went to see the friendly hardware man at Ace hardware and found that
their faucets were pretty 'pricey' or 'spendy' as some of the locals
say, so I ordered one from Amazon dot com on the Internet, (You can
get almost anything from them!) We would just have to put up with the
drip for a while longer.
Unfortunately
for me, the new faucet arrived in just a few days and I no longer had
any excuse for delaying what I knew from experience was going to be a
bitch.
You
see, I had done the same job twice before; It seems like every ten
years or so I'm destined to crawl under the bathroom or kitchen sink
and pretend, painfully, to be a plumber. I didn't like doing it
twenty years ago, and I still don't like doing it, especially now,
with tremors and loss of dexterity lending me a hand.
I
unhooked and unscrewed the fittings, pipes and lines, lifted the sink
off of the pedestal and put it on the floor, where I removed the old
faucet and drain. It looked like it was time for another trip to Ace
hardware, where I bought a tube of silicone sealer to make the new
drain assembly water tight. When I read the instructions on the tube,
(the printing was so small that I had to use my reading glasses and a
magnifying glass,) I found that it had a 3 hour drying time, so after
installing the new faucet and drain, it was time for a break, or
actually another trip to Ace for new supply line hoses because the
old ones appeared to be too short.
The
friendly hardware man recognized me and led me to the supply line
department on aisle four, where a myriad of hoses hung, all of
different lengths and sizes. He helped me search through them and it
seemed as though they had every size made except the ones I wanted. I
finally settled for a couple that were too long, but better too long
than too short. As I was checking out, the cashier asked me, “How
is your day going, sir?” In reply I held up the supply lines. A
pitying look crossed her face and she said, “I feel your pain!” I
doubt it, I thought.
By
then I'd been up and down off of the bathroom floor enough times that
my elbows, hips and knees were getting sore, but I was beginning to
see the light at the end of the tunnel and hopefully it wasn't a
train! Everything started falling into place and with the help of my
reading glasses, my computer glasses and my head lamp, I got the
supply and drain lines hooked up and tightened. Holding my breath I
opened the water valves and much to my amazement there wasn't one
leak!
Maybe
ten years from now, if I'm still around, I'll call a plumber.
