Plumb Crazy - Like a Fox!

Well, whadda ya know.

We went to Lowe's this evening and bought a new faucet for the bathroom sink.

Shrike was going to wait til tomorrow to install it, but she'd removed the old one to take it with us for matching purposes, which required turning off all the water in the house, so she could either put the old one back on again or go ahead and put in the new one so we could, you know, brush our teeth and flush the toilets and such.

I was sitting here in front of the computer, playing with puppy photos and not paying a lot of attention to what she was doing, when I suddenly heard water running, and realized that she was in the basement, turning it back on.

I went into the bathroom, to make sure it wasn't making a mess in there, and there's the faucet, mostly installed, with water coming out of it - right where it should.

I turned it off and - praise be to all that is holy - it turned off - compeletely! With no dripping, no running, no nothing!

Is that plumbing angels that I hear singing?

She does have to go back to Lowe's tomorrow for silicone putty to seal it up before completely finishing the job, but I'm pretty sure the hard part is done.

Look, Ma, no drips!

But wait - there's more!

A few minutes later, Shrike called me into the laundry room, where she was standing in front of the washing machine.

"Look what you cat did," she said. I couldn't figure out what the hell one of the cats could've done to the washing machine.

Then she opened the lid, turned on the water, and told me, "Feel that!" (the water).

On my God - it's hot!

(The cat thing was mostly an elaborate ruse. Although MamaCat had just pooped in the floor just outside the litterbox - right in front of her. But I was really there for the hot water.)

On an earlier trip to Lowe's, she'd picked up a couple of "valve mitts" which are chunky plastic handles that fit over the round metal pipe valve knobs, to make them easier to turn.

She'd put one on the whole-house cut off valve in the basement, and had another left, so she tried putting it on the broken hot water valve that goes to the washing machine.

And it worked!

She was able to turn the knob and open the valve, and now there's hot water going to the washing machine.

I guess we'd forgotten that the whole problem with it was that we'd broken the handle trying to turn it on when we hooked up the washer.

Two plumbing projects (almost) completed in one day!

I hearby do publicly and sincerely apologize for ever doubting you, honey.

Now if she can just do something about the damn running toilets . . . .