Rant #2,896: Flush the Fashion

 

 
This past weekend, I personally celebrated the fact that 34 years ago on Sunday, I became a father for the first time.
 
My daughter turned 34 years of age on Sunday, May 15, and I did manage to speak to her over the phone, although she told me that she had not yet received my card.
 
I am sure it will come in the mail today.
 
However, I did not know the personal celebration I had on May 15 would be upended, in a way, by other problems in the house, which I wish I could have simply flushed away … but that was the problem.
 
I went to sleep at whatever time I did on Saturday night, and everything was fine and dandy until I woke up in the middle ot the night to go to the bathroom.
 
I did what I had to do, pushed down the handle to get rid of it, and lo and behold, the handle did not work.
 
Now that this happened, I kind of fully awoke from the sleep, put the light in the bathroom on, and took the top off the tank.
 
It appeared that the plastic piece that attaches the handle to the plunger—my word, I have no idea what you really call this part of the mechanism—was loose and/or ready to break off or something, but whatever it was, it did not work.
 
So I manually flushed the toilet, and that was that for now.
 
I tried to get back to sleep, but the fact that I was going to have to call in a plumber on Sunday—and the costs that that would ensue—threw me for a loop.
 
I could not get to sleep, and when I finally did, I had a terrible nightmare that involved my son “shape changing,” or morphing into other figures.
 
Don’t ask … and no, he did not morph into the toilet handle.
 
And when I woke up in a cold sweat from that dream, I decided that a change of scene would be good and rid me of such thoughts, and I went into the living room to sleep …
 
Only to have part two of that nightmare, as it seemed to pick up precisely where I left it in the bedroom.
 
I woke up several times after that, and really did not ever fully get back to sleep.
 
When I finally got up from my supposed sleep, I knew that later that morning, I would have to call in a plumber to fix this thing, as the handle had now completely broken off from the plunger.
 
At about 8:30 a.m., I called a local plumber, who told me that he would come to fix it on Monday, but I told him that the toilet was making “growling” noises—not a lie, it was on some manual flushes, on others it was silent—and he said he would come over later that morning to fix it.
 
He did, happily, he fixed the problem, but I had to take what it cost—and it was not cheap at all—out of my vacation money to pay him for his work.
 
I was not too happy, but at least we had our toilet back … and yes, in the early afternoon, I christened it and yes, it does work very well.
 
So whatever joy I had at the celebration of my 34th year as a father was at least slightly blighted by, of all things, a toilet.
 
But at least this past evening, from Sunday to Monday morning, I slept like a baby, with no nightmares and no getting up and no nothing.
 
I was out like a light.
 
I guess that happened because now we have a healthy toilet, and honestly, you don’t know how much you miss these conveniences until you lose them, even for a short spell like we did.
 
But I am always looking for the next hurdle, the next challenge that I am going to have to face.
 
I know that today is a full moon day, and we just went through some type of eclipse that few in our area could see because of the cloud cover.
 
With that full moon, I know that Lon Chaney Jr.’s  “Lawrence Talbot” might be just around the corner, and I might have to protect myself from werewolves because of the presence of that full moon.
 
Like Lou Costello in “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein,” I will handle it the best way I know how.
 
Talbot: As the night comes and the full moon rises, I turn into a wolf!
 
Costello: You and a thousand other guys!
 
Yes, that should do it.