The first thing I decided to do was call brother L and ask him to come over and fix it for me. The following is a paraphrased version of our conversation.
C: My toilet is broke. Can you come and fix it?
BL: Explain how it is broken.
C: Explanation
BL: Um…no you can fix that yourself.
C: But I don’t want to. (whiny voice)
BL: Seriously, it is a two minute fix. It would take me longer to drive to your house than it would take me to complete the repair.
C: But, I don’t know how.
BL: It is simple and I know you can do it.
C: But, I don’t want to! (more whiny voice)
BL: Too bad…do it yourself.
Sigh! Sigh! Sigh! I guess this meant I needed to fix the toilet myself. The next day I took myself to Lowe’s after work and I soon became overwhelmed at the amount of repair items in the plumbing aisle. I got the attention of an employee and he helped me pick out the right thing. The new piece seemed pretty simple and theoretically easy to install. Theoretically is the key word of that sentence. I removed the broken piece easily and then I began to try and fit the metal piece through the hole. Good . Then I tried to fit the plastic bracket in the hole in the toilet. Guess what?? It didn't exactly fit. I tried pushing it in. I encountered some resistance so I push a bit harder. Snap! This is the sound the new piece made as I broke it.
Fu*k Fu*k Fu*k
I guess it didn’t fit into the hole. After a closer inspection I realized that the mounting piece was a touch too large to fit in the hole. OK so day 1 of this repair was a FAIL. But I didn't feel too bad as I discovered I had a much better understand of the inner workings of my toilet.
The next day I went back to Lowe’s and I explained my problem to the worker and he gave me a slightly different piece that might work with my brand of toiled. As I drove home and I had hopeful thoughts that the repair was going to be a snap. Negative Houston!
This time the piece did fit in the hole great but the plastic piece that lifts the flapper was too long or it was shaped wrong because it was too close to the front portion of the tank. I looked at the piece and I saw notations on it that said you could cut it to fit. I took it to the kitchen and grabbed a steak knife and I started to saw at the plastic. In hindsight this doesn’t seem like a good plan. I could not saw through the plastic but I did end up bending it back and forth and finally snapping the end off.
I took the shorter piece back to the bathroom and I discovered that it was still too long. A little more work with the knife and some bending and viola the piece was now about 1.5 inches long. Yea...1.5 inches. But at least it fit in the toilet without rubbing the edge. Score. Now I tried to attached the plastic flapper piece to the new arm. Problem Houston because the hole is too small. The hole is small and rectangular and the flapper is larger and a triangle. I tried all kinds of things to get it to fit. Pushing it. I tried attaching some dental floss to use as a mini rope to pull it through the hole. That did NOT work. I tried using my tweezers to pull it through the hole but I couldn’t reach it. It just didn’t fit. Damn Damn Damn. You know rectangles and triangles do not fit together.
I believe I threw some sort of fit in the bathroom when I couldn't get it to work. Luckily no one was there to witness the long stream of curse works that left my mouth or the vast amount of foot stamping. After I had calmed down a bit I decided to remove this old toiled bowl cleaner thing that was installed in the back of the tank. A long long time ago it contained cleaner but it had long since run its course. Done. It was removed and I felt like I could do that one little thing.
I went to bed angry with not solution in sight. The next morning I got up, used the bathroom and got ready to get in the shower. Don't imagine it too much but this did involve removing my clothes. I lifted the back of the tank to manually lift the flapper and I had a rude awakening. Splat! This was the sound the very COLD water made as it hit me in the chest. I didn't know what to do with the little tubes that fill the tank and they were just flopping about wildly in the tank. So not only did I have to manually flush the toilet I also had to duck from the water fountain that came out the toilet tank.
I guess I made the bad situation worse. Now, I didn't even want to use the bathroom as it was way too much trouble. This plan involved me drinking less water and pop when I was at home.
As I was driving to work I decided that the situation warranted a second call to brother L. This time my whining and ignorance worked and he agreed to come over and fix it for me. However, it took some coaxing and begging. A few days later I procured a third handle and a complete toilet repair kit. I wanted to be prepared for any problem when L came by. He installed the new handle in 5 minutes, shoved the water feeding tubes in their hole and lowered the tank water level. The funniest part was L was wearing a blue and white stripe shirt that looked like a repairman work shirt. All it needed was a patch for his name. It cracked me up.
The reason I couldn't get the second lever to work was because I should have bent it out and not cut it off into a tiny stump. So I believe in the future I could install a new handle. Woo Hoo....but I am not guaranteeing that I could fix anything else inside there. It is complicated!
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