Mission accomplished

Well, I really accomplished something today. I fixed my toilet.

This was my first major adventure in one of those little things that I would have called in to the landlord if I had one, but I had to take care of it instead. Or suck it up and call either a man I know or a plumber to come and take care of it. I was reluctant to do either of those.

The problem was that the toilet wouldn't flush. I easily removed the top of the tank and looked around and found the problem. What it looked like when I first looked in there: the stopper-thingy got disconnected from well, that, other thingy. The "other thingy" moved when you depressed the lever as if to flush. But since the stopper-thingy was disconnected, it stayed in place and there was no flushing.

After 2 visits to Home Depot, here's what I saw: my flush valve actuator system was disconnected from the actuator disk. Bad news: you need a whole new system. Good news: system costs just under 10 bucks. Great news: I figured out how to install it and did so successfully within about 10 minutes.

Paul and I can flush again, which is a good thing.

But I admit it was sort of tempting to keep making Paul hike to the toilet in the basement. That would be one way to keep things upstairs smelling better.

Anyway, it made me feel like I really accomplished something today, even if it wasn't getting ready for class, writing a dissertation, or grading the papers that got turned in Friday.

Ah well, I suppose we have to take the successes where we find them.