In case you have forgotten...or maybe you never knew, I am the one who tends to break things, NOT the fixer. I am spending this week with my grand daughters while daughter and son in law are in London. (Yes, I know LONDON is MY big plan, and I'll get there eventually) Daughter left lengthy instructions in case one of the girls, pets, or house breaks. Permission slips, Insurance cards, medication schedules, class schedules, maps and contingency plans were all addressed prior to her exit from the country. Other than the four am awakening each day, I felt certain that I was capable of maintaining a smoothly run household even in parental absence. At fourteen and seventeen, both girls are fairly self sufficient, the younger requiring a chauffeur, but otherwise knowledgeable of all things expected of her.
Pushing the handle on the toilet in the downstairs bathroom brought no response on one of those stops on the way into the house. Even with my limited mechanical knowledge, I knew to check to see if the chain inside the tank had come loose. It was still firmly attached to the little bar, but the little bar was just lolling around in the water attached to nothing on the other end. I pulled on it and the toilet flushed, released it and the tank began to fill with water. You have no idea how satisfying this can be to one usually unable to make things of this nature function. In my newfound area of expertise, I thought I would simply snap the end of the bar back into the place where it meets the handle on the inside of the tank. It is plastic and the connection was still in place but snapped in half, never to connect again. My first thought, Son in law will fix this easily when he returns. After about fifteen manual flushes (reminding myself each time that this is CLEAN water) it occurred to me that this might be daughter's first stop as she enters her home tonight. I thought it would be comforting to know that the part was already in place for her spouse's easy correction of the problem. I mentioned it when talking to Ol' Abner this afternoon and he told me what I would need to buy. As we talked it came to mind that Da' Handygirl across the street was always doing some sort of home repair including some fairly complicated plumbing projects. I tentatively mentioned her ability and asked him if I might be able to take on this project. Since he is a few hundred miles to the south, he said "Sure", but if I can't figure it out, it will probably be helpful to son in law to have the part here when he arrives.
With a sense of mission, I drove to the big box home repair store, purchased the required part for the toilet and returned to begin reading the instructions. Elder Grand came downstairs and I requested that she see if a pair of pliers like the ones pictured in the tool list might be found and she brought them in. I showed her the instructions and she seemed to think this was not beyond my capabilities. Perhaps not, but in the end, I read instructions, opened packages and she installed the new toilet flusher. It flushes nicely, now (and I did have to keep reminding her that it was clean water). Did I mention that she has chosen engineering as her field of study as she approaches college?
