"Honey, Don't Flush the Toilet"

I've been looking forward to the nice long weekend since I have July 4th off. Woo hoo! Monday dawned and all I could think of was only four days to work this week. I envisioned cleaning house and getting all my weekend work finished on Friday so I'd have two whole days to read, write and relax. I was fixing dinner when my hubby rushed into the kitchen and said, "Honey, don't flush the toilet. It's leaking!"

Our half-bath downstairs was being flooded. He removed the ceiling panels and found the leak at the floor under the upstairs toilet. Not too bad, since hubby is a handy man. I just felt bad that he would have to spend his Tuesday wrestling with the toilet by himself.

I came home Tuesday night and he was happy. He'd replaced the wax rings and we now had two flushable toilets again. We had planned to go to Home Depot and look at floor tile because I had finally agreed to replace the twelve year old tile which had seen better days. We found the perfect flooring. Looks like old wood like you'd see in an old school house. You can see the knot holes and grain. Hickory in color. It had a 25 year guarantee. The new tile doesn't stick to the subfloor, but instead sticks to each separate piece and makes a beautiful pattern. We ate and came home and I retired to the sofa to rest. Then I heard these dreaded words: "Honey, don't flush the toilet!"

I thought he was kidding, but nope. That porcelain throne was leaking again. Yesterday, hubby spent another day "fixing" the toilet. I came home to a living room full of kitchen. The microwave stand, the butcher block serving cart, the table and chairs, the wine rack...everything dominated my living room. Hubby had stripped about half the tile from the kitchen floor in preparation for adding another layer of subfloor before putting down the new flooring. **sigh** I hate this. My nice long weekend would be interrupted with nail hammering and sawing. Impossible to find a quiet spot to write. No need to even think about cleaning and dusting until this whole fiasco is finished. At least a week. But at least the toilet was fixed.

We ate and I retired to my office to write.

"Honey! Don't flush the toilet!"

Nooooooo. So once again...hubby will spend today "fixing" the toilet. He says he knows the right combination of wax rings to use this time. We'll see.