Toilet Story (pt. 2)

About four weeks ago I had an unpleasant encounter with my toilet. Worse, I had the temerity to write about it. But before you run off to look for a get well card, you should know it wasn't biological in nature. Yes, I am indeed fortunate not to suffer from IBS, diarrhea, hemorrhoids or constipation.

This encounter was strictly limited to plumbing of the man-made variety.

You see, driven mad by a plastic hexagonal nut that had fused to the threaded stem of the fill valve and my subsequent inability to remove it, I began to attack the problem from the inside. Namely, this consisted of smashing the fill valve with a hammer.

Alas, one of my swings was errant and shattered the water tank. Regrettably, it was only then that I entertained the idea of grabbing the fill valve with my bare hand and bending it towards the bottom of the tank until it broke.

Fortunately, the valve snapped before I did. (Although in plumbing circles, this remains a matter of conjecture.)

In the aftermath, I commenced to look for a new toilet. It was then that I was struck by a most-welcome realization: I had a two-piece toilet! I needed only to replace the water tank and could certainly install that myself. Couldn't I?

(Longtime readers will be excused for turning away at this point.)

Yes, unburdened by my short-tempered excursion into home repair I recovered the toilet's model name and serial number and before long had located the tank I needed to put this problem behind me.

I needed only to order it.

Of course, it wasn't that simple. Oh, the agent I spoke with was a delight and we had a very animated chat about how I came to be searching for toilet bits on the Internet. But in the larger sense, it couldn't (and wouldn't) be a simple matter of ordering, receiving and installing.

Is it ever?

The first replacement was surreptitiously left in front of my garage by FedEx. No knock, no doorbell and no wonder. The second I picked it up I realized it was in pieces. The good folk who manned the manufacturer's call center immediately arranged for another replacement.

I waited, fearing to even imagine a positive outcome. Which was a good thing because replacement number-two also arrived in pieces. This was also dropped-off silently by my FedEx man (or woman).

Full of the kind of trepidation only the truly-innocent can harbor, I called the manufacturer again, fearful I'd be accused of fraud. For a third time I was met with an agent who listened to my story and after a brief response, put me on hold.

When she returned, she had a solution. Instead of allowing the tank to be sourced from their default location in Texas, this tank would be sourced from a location much nearer. Despite my best efforts, I felt relief. This sounded like a very promising alternative.

In a world where we take so much for granted, the radiant joy that washed over me after I opened the box and found replacement number-three in a single piece was a minor miracle. Of note is that FedEx had boldly left it on my porch.

I unboxed it and cradled it in my arms. An over-reaction? Probably. But with a home repair project gone so spectacularly wrong, even the tiniest success assumes the weight of giants.

Eager to restore the functionality of my second bathroom, I scanned the unit. The small plastic bag of parts that accompanied it and my array of tools. Then I looked at the installation instructions.

Like most, they were exceedingly optimistic, reducing the installation to two steps. I smiled knowingly. Hell, I'd be lucky if I got through this with just two trips to my local home improvement store.

I set about removing the old tank, which went surprisingly well. I cleaned the mount where the new tank would sit and examined the new tank's fittings. While slightly different than the previous model, they didn't present a problem.

All was going swimmingly until it came time to attach the supply line to the tank—per the instructions. Left with a heavily oxidized solid unit, I fell prey to ambition and decided I would upgrade it with a braided flex line.

(To those of you not flushed with the kind of satisfaction one receives at having successfully mounted a brand-new water tank atop a toilet—go ahead—laugh.)

In keeping with the tenor of this project, the trip to my local home improvement store was made unduly difficult by the fact that within the 4.3 miles of travel it takes to arrive at my local home improvement store rest seven (yes seven) traffic signals (often referred to as “red lights” by hard-bitten, seasoned drivers such as myself who fail to appreciate their purpose).

I would be remiss if I failed to mention the remnants of rush hour traffic, a surface rail crossing and the fact that, yes, all seven of these lights turned red upon my arrival, stretching a trip that by rights should have taken no more than seven minutes into eye-clawing agony that persisted for nineteen.

(If you're counting, that is exactly half the average speed at which normal urban traffic travels—and I live in what I fondly refer to as the middle of nowhere.)

With my ambition intact, I sought out the plumbing section and promptly selected two seven-inch supply lines (why not replace both?) and a 13 millimeter crescent wrench. Even with the knowledge of what awaited me on the area's roads, I practically danced to my car, certain this project had reached the home stretch.

Oh that my financial reserves were as boundless as my naivete.

Problem number-one was that I had followed the instructions, and had secured the tank before installing the supply line. When the seven-inch flex line didn't possess the requisite flexibility, I resorted to the one-piece.

But with the tank fully screwed on, the clearance was left wanting.

So I undid the three screws, lifted the water tank and installed the original supply line. I cursed the instructions for inverting this sequence. For a second time I attached the water tank.

Sigh.

I turned on the water. This was the moment of truth.

The tank filled and the toilet flushed without resembling certain scenes from Titanic, but the clumsy and ill-fitting monkey wrench I had at my disposal did not allow for the proper tightening of the toilet's water line to the home's water line.

I turned off the water, ignoring that which had already leaked, gathered the now-useless flex lines and set out yet-again for my local home improvement store. I was momentarily heartened by a green light, but sank when I realized I could have made a right-turn on red, anyway.

Yes, that was how this morning was going. Even my illusions of good fortune were frauds.

I re-entered the store where my money was cheerfully and expeditiously refunded.Then I realized I had left home without my wallet. Yes, I was in a truly special place.

So it was fortunate that the refunded cash was sufficient to cover the purchase of a 16 millimeter crescent wrench. I was again made fortunate when I realized that since this item contained so little alcohol, it was unlikely an ID would be required for purchase.

Back in the car I valiantly fought-off traffic, determined to keep my eyes on the prize. This toilet would be made functional or by God...I will, um, er... Hmmm. It appeared I was fresh out of vengeful oaths for the day. 

Once home, I deftly applied the wrench to the connecting nut on the supply line and watched with resonant satisfaction as its arms perfectly enfolded the nut's six sides and tightened it with a wordless certainty.

It was a moment of deep synchronicity. And of having the right tools.

Amen.

 

Happy Halloween

It's Halloween. And for reasons unknown to me we persist in celebrating the mad, the frightening and the macabre even with Donald Trump in the White House.

My low-cal contribution to the holiday is this retelling of my encounters with bombers.

For those fortunate-enough not to know what bombers are, read on.

I happen to live two communities removed from one featuring a gravel pit. Which means the area's roads are thick with what I call bombers—trucks with open, double-axled trailers infamous for spewing gravel and stones onto the vehicles behind them.

When they're not pounding our roads into dust, their drivers alternately menace and foul traffic. In my eight years in the region, no other type of truck (with the possible exception of pick-ups) makes driving so reliably frustrating. Or dangerous.

Like all truckers, they endure their share of impatient motorists who zoom around them with righteous indignation. But in first-hand accounts, they give far worse than they get.

Given their enormous weight, they are, by nature, lumbering. Traveling behind one on a two-lane road chock-full of traffic signals will excite even the most-serene bowel. Worse, when presented with a four-lane road, their drivers frequently opt for the so-called fast lane.

'Slow Traffic Keep Right' may as well be posted in Sanskrit.

As a result, they evoke mass panic in our driving population. This is amplified when one is trapped behind two bombers—one thoughtfully occupying each lane on a four-lane road. Given a choice between this and driving with a swarm of mosquitoes inside my car, I'll take the mosquitoes.

Alas, bombers do not always travel at such modest speeds. On roads not choked with stop lights, bombers reveal their true selves—frustrated BMW drivers trapped in seven-ton gravel haulers. Yes, they like to go fast.

As a bus driver, I'll never forget the two bombers that came roaring out of the pre-dawn darkness just as I began a protected left-hand turn. I hit the brakes with such force I activated the bus's event camera.

It was a very good thing no one was aboard.

Then there was the time I was headed to work, traveling a rural two-lane at my customary five-over. As I entered a sweeping right-hand curve, I became aware of a vehicle attempting to pass on my left.

No surprise—it was a bomber, trying to pass despite the double yellow lines and oncoming early-morning traffic. He nearly jack-knifed after slamming on his air brakes.

Just two weeks ago, there was yet-another bomber who forced me across the double yellow line after coming up on my right at a merge. He was going to get ahead of me or remove the passenger side of my car trying.

My mate and I were lucky there was no oncoming traffic, as a head-on collision would have been inevitable.

If asked, the bomber's driver would no doubt state he had checked for oncoming traffic before forcing me off the road. Because that's the kind of drivers they are.

Yeah.

I took the license number and filed a complaint with the local police. The owners stated the trailer had been leased to an independent owner-operator (of course) and as such they were unable to identify the driver.

I lacked a trailer number or any information from the cab, so like a visit to a government agency while I possessed information it wasn't the right information.

Sigh.

There are contrarians who would maintain that the bombers infesting our roads represents a healthy and thriving economy, and that I should be grateful for such. And I agree--in part. They're certainly good for the manufacturer of the dash cam I just purchased.

Yep—my next encounter with a bomber is going to be a hi-def spectacle which will be distributed to finer police departments everywhere with YouTube not far behind.

Smile, bro. Are you ready for your close-up?

Stop Light Validation (rebooted)

Employment posts to the contrary, I am not a negative guy.

I mean, come on. I like the New Beetle. And what kind of curmudgeon would embrace such an effervescent design, anyway? Just because I choose not to self-medicate with delusional pabulum like “It’s all good” doesn’t mean I am a sour human being.

It means I have a tangible connection with reality.

But occasionally, there is doubt. No surprise, given the avalanche of positivity forced down our throats. Is society any less overweening telling the long-term unemployed how they should feel than it is telling a thirteen-year-old girl how she should look?

I don't think so.

My take on things is decidedly less-fashionable. When life is good, I am happy. When life isn't good, I'm not so happy. Simple. It's a reflection of my emotional palate. Life is never all good or all bad. Some things suck. Some things don't.

Take stop lights. They suck. I detest them. Stop lights are driving's equivalent of having a stone in your shoe. I don’t want to know how many hours I have whiled away at red lights on shriveled cross streets which rarely—if ever—bear appreciable traffic.

Little is as absurd and as pointless as sitting still at an empty intersection. Stop lights impede, impair and inhibit the flow of traffic. Which is a full one-hundred eighty degrees removed from what conventional wisdom says they do.

But this isn’t a post about stop lights per se. It’s about whether I’m a nabob of negativity or a clear-eyed realist.

Do I hit as many red lights as I think I do? Or is it my so-called negativity coloring my outlook?

I have attempted to answer this by tracking two stop lights I feel as if I never make. The streets at those intersections are similar in size and traffic volume.

Intersection 1 is near my home, and consists of two heavily-traveled residential streets. Going north and south seems to be a fifty-fifty proposition, meaning you have a fifty percent chance of hitting a green light.

Going east or west seems to be another story. In my possibly errant opinion, making a green light headed in either of those directions is an event worthy of cake.

Intersection 2 combines another heavily-traveled residential street with a moderately-used two-lane arterial street. And like intersection 1, the signal seems completely unrelated to traffic volume.

Despite their similar loads, heading north or south on the residential street seems to guarantee an opportunity to revisit the word linger, while going east or west on the arterial seems to at least give drivers a fighting chance.

As any budding traffic scientist worth their ceramic brake pads knows, special care must be taken to avoid polluting the sample. Which is an officious way of saying not once did I speed up to make a green light or slow down to hit a red one.

NO DATA WAS MANIPULATED IN THE WRITING OF THIS POST.

I merely traveled at the posted speed and let the lights turn as they may.

Over the course of a month, I encountered intersection 1 (going east or west) twenty-three times. Nineteen times I hit a red light, an astonishing 82.6% of all eastbound or westbound trips. And in fifty-five trips through intersection 2 (headed north or south), I encountered a red light thirty-seven times, or 67.2% of all northbound and southbound trips.

Sure, no one exiting the strip mall from Ray’s World of Seafood should expect to gain instant access to the local six-laner. But neither of the above percentages is anywhere near the fifty-fifty split the similar traffic volume of the streets passing through those intersections would suggest.

Nor are these isolated instances. I’ve encountered signals like these everywhere I’ve lived. Conversely, I’ve never discovered a signal in a comparable location that I made 82.6% of the time. And in the face of so much smart technology, this consistent inconsistency is difficult to understand.

What I do understand is that it wasn't my outlook that sucked--it was the stop lights. I'm no festering nabob of negativism. I'm a clear-eyed realist.

To paraphrase the late, great Eddie Kendricks, this wasn’t just my negativity, running away with me.

But I’m still seeing red.

The Stop Light

Ordinarily, I would welcome the distraction of colored lights. I would revel in their ephemeral, continually-changing array, and delight in the sense of whimsy they brought to the hard urban landscape.

But I don’t. I hate them. They are my sworn enemy.

It doesn't matter whether they're mounted on the ground or suspended in the air. They make my upper lip curl in an Elvis-like sneer. They just can’t win with me. I hate the long ones and I hate the short ones

And how the hell do they always know to turn red as I'm approaching, anyway? It's motion detectors, right?

I’ve lost track of the times I’ve seen two-dozen drivers on an enormous, six-lane boulevard come to a stop at the scrawny driveway of a dilapidated strip mall only to stare at an empty intersection. What end does it serve? What point does it make?

I’m convinced traffic signals are set by an evil consortium of brake pad manufacturers and oil companies. That or strip mall land lords.

But that's not all. I hate how they keep traffic compacted into a tight little knot until the next light. It’s like a rolling pressure cooker. Lane changes require elevated levels of testosterone.

The kid subjecting his car to death via hip-hop is invariably next to you. And if you couldn’t assume the next light was red, you wouldn’t be able to see it for the lumbering SUV in front of you.

Aside from making a powerful argument for Libertarians and insuring that our trips take as long and contain as many stops as possible, I really can’t think of a good use for traffic signals.

Maybe I should call Martha Stewart. She might know how to turn them into planters. Or mailboxes.

Anything would be more useful.