More Toilet Humor

So last week, I was house sitting at my dad's while he and his wife Brenda absconded on a Caribbean Cruise. I had to look after my stepsister Janice as well. It wasn't that bad, more of annoyance really, since I would simply rather be at home with my wife and sleeping in my own bed. But when I came home, instead of finding the comfort and familiarity I was missing, I found a shithole.

No, I don't mean that while I was gone, that Megan really let the place get messy. No, I mean that where our bathroom toilet in the basement used to be, the was now a hole. A hole where shit goes, aka a shithole.

How did this happen? Well, as you may or may not know, our downstairs toilet has been a source of concern for the Thom household. I tried to fix it myself, but I just couldn't get it to stop leaking from the base of the tank. When I was finally able solve that problem, it turned out that I had been a bit overzealous in attaching the tank to the seat, and cracked the tank. So, in fixing one problem, I had created another. So, it was either: a) try and find a new tank and risk making the same mistake, or b) just replace the entire, and frankly rather fucked up, toilet. We went with b). And this time, we decided to do it right and have a plumber install it. Sounds simple, right? If you said yes, you either a) don't own a home or b) haven't been reading my blog.

Since I was housesitting, Megan was the one left overseeing the toilet install. Everything was going fine, until the plumber came upstairs and said to her, "Um, ma'am...can you come take a look at something?" I'm not sure, but I think next to "Oh shit! She's gonna blow!" those are the last words you want to hear from your plumber. Megan went downstairs to investigate. What she found, ultimately became the talk of the plumbing shop.

Now, I don't know how familiar you actually are with you toilets. Sure, you stand over them, stand on them, sit on them, and occasionally kneel before them, and maybe even hug them. Up until I bought a house and inherited a busted-ass toilet, I didn't know that much about them myself. So, just to review, let's go over the basic construction of a standard toilet. You have a toilet, it's hooked up in the back to a water supply line for water coming in and it's attached at the bottom to a sewage pipe. The sewage pipe is sealed with a wax ring, and the toilet is bolted to the floor. At least, that's how it's supposed to be done.

Apparently, the moron who installed our toilets assumed that they would never, ever, ever, ever, ever, in a million years break. You know how we know this? Because instead of using wax seal and bolts to secure the toilet, he set it in cement. Our toilet was set in fucking cement! The plumber was able to remove the tank, of course, and he was able to remove most of toilet down to the base through sheer brute force and something we like to call a sledgehammer. But that was as far as the plumber could get. The rest was beyond him, he would have to call for back-up. Oh, and he estimated it would probably cost about $1000 to actually fix it.

So, that's where he left it. He called his boss, who came out a couple of days later to take a look. He concluded that the best course of action would be to demo out a hole around the sewer pipe to get rid of the rest of the toilet, re-lay some concrete and then install the toilet. Therefore, something that should have taken at most about an hour, would now take at least two appointments. The good news is it would only cost about $300. The bad news is our schedules don't match until Monday, April 3.

Thus, we have a shithole in our basement. A shithole stuffed with newspaper to prevent sewer gas from seeping into our house, stinking up the joint, and possibly killing us. Ahh, the joys of home ownership....