There's been a minor crisis in the household since Friday evening. That's when Little Miss Field Day flushed something down the commode... and the water backed up.
Well, it wasn't the first time in recent memory, so walked away from the contest, headed upstairs, grabbed the plunger. Plunger failed.
Borrowed a plumber's snake from my father in law. It hit a blockage and wouldn't budge.
Seeing the proverbial handwriting, and having tolerated at this point almost 48 hours of kvetching from 2 of the 3 females of the household (LucyFurr didn't care, she just continued to use the backyard for her business), I went to Home De$pot and bought a new one. Of course, my father-in-law had to come help... which I really don't mind when it comes to major plumbing issues. Timing was such that this morning was the only time he had free for the project before they head off to Hawaii for a cruise, so I took the morning off.
Started work at 8 AM. By 8:30 had the old commode out... tank broke when I tried to force a rusty "it's not supposed to rust!" bolt, otherwise no major issues.
Father-in-law arrives at 10. After looking things over, he decides our best bet is to use the "snap-off" bolts I'd purchased. We get the bowl in place, and he discovers that the snap-off bolts don't snap off, we'll have to cut them. I start to get the hacksaw; he decides to take the bowl back up and trim the screws first. We get it off, trim the bolts, go to put them back on.
He bends over to check something... and it happens. "Oh, sh!t!!!" he yells...
His cell phone was in his front shirt pocket. Was. You guessed it... right down the waste hole.
...yes, we got it out. Had to open up the access in the main drain down in the basement, I ran a couple of buckets of water down until it was, literally, flushed out. (And once it was cleaned & dried, it did power back up, but I suggested he take it to the local AT&T Wireless store to have it checked. Well, he needed a new one anyway...)
I can chuckle about it now. He wasn't in a good mode when it happened (always a sign he knows it's his own fault!). That said, though, I never thought I'd actually see that happen in real life.
I will now leave you all to the reply comments for all the obvious jokes and wisecracks.
Reply With Quote
