Rant #1,970: Can't Live Without My Toilet ... and Affection

The remnants of Hurricane Harvey continue to pummel Texas, dropping many more inches of rain on this area that is already saturated with water.

I heard on the news this morning that tomorrow, state officials are looking for their first break in the aftermath of this storm, and the assessment of damage can finally be made.

And it looks like the first day that people can start to rebuild their lives.

Me, I just had to worry yesterday about my home toilet.

While the world was watching Houston and its surrounding areas trying to make it through one of the worst storms in history, my family and I had to make it through a day without our toilet.

Well, not really, and I know the comparison really is not a good one, but the only somewhat valid comparison I can make is that when you are used to something, and it is taken away from you, it can throw you off kilter a bit.

No, that is not a good comparison at all, but I guess I am looking at some levity in a bad situation.

If you are also looking to maybe crack a smile a bit about what has happened lately, you have come to the right place.

What happened is that our toilet basically broke, not the full toilet, but the plunger that enables whatever damage we have done in there to flow down the pipes and out of the house.

For years, we have had a very, very slight minor problem with our toilet. You had to hold down the plunger for a few seconds to get the stuff down, because for some reason, we had a short chain inside the toilet, so you couldn't just hit the plunger and the stuff would go away.

No big deal. We did it for years, when we had guests, we told them to hold down the plunger for a few seconds and everything would go away, and it really wasn't much of a bother.

A few weeks ago, I noticed that the toilet was making some noises, and it kind of fixed itself, but it was an omen for what was to come.

On Sunday night, the noises came back, and we could not flush the toilet without manually going into its tank and putting the rubber portion of the plunger over the area where the water went out and came back in.

(Obviously, I am not a plumber, and I have no idea what these things are actually called, but I think by my description, you can probably figure it all out.)

Anyway, it wasn't the chain--which was still taut and holding--but it was the rubber piece that had eroded to the point that it could not find its "destination" anymore.

I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and I noticed that the sound was still there, and I had to, once again, manually put the rubber piece over the hole.

Later, when I woke up to get ready for work, the same thing happened, and when my wife woke up, I told her about it, too.

Later that day, my son posted on Facebook, "Why doesn't the toilet flush?" and we had to do something about it.

Not being mechanically inclined at all, a plumber was called in, and later in the day, he fixed the whole thing by putting in a new plunger apparatus, for lack of the real term that it is called.

So last night, we finally had our toilet back to us.

I fell asleep pretty early last night, so I only first used our new plunger when I woke up this morning to get ready for work.

It works well, and after many years of having to hold down the plunger, it felt almost weird to not have to do that again.

It is so nice to have our toilet back and in working order. You really don't realize how you miss such conveniences until they go on the blink.

My father talks about his childhood, when he lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and he lived in a building where not every apartment had indoor plumbing, and people had to wait in line to use the bathroom.

I can't even imagine such a situation, so the one we had yesterday was peanuts as compared to what others have had to go through simply to use the bathroom.

But nonetheless, it was a major inconvenience for us, and I am glad it is fixed.

No, it is nothing like what is going on in Texas, but I have always thought a little levity makes any bad situation better, and after writing for two days about Harvey, it was time to laugh again.

Now, if you want, you can flush this Rant down the toilet, but at least you won't have to hold that plunger down to get rid of it.

Good luck to the people of Texas. They are going to need all the help they can get.