Half-A**ing It

You know how I said yesterday that I don’t recommend half-a**ing anything? Well, turns out that the one thing that I half-ass on a regular basis is the toilet. Wait…not what I meant. What I mean is this; there are some things, most things, to which I will devote my complete devotion: watching a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon, writing letters of recommendation for former students, seeking out all Taco John’s restaurants in a 300 mile radius. To those things I will bestow all of my energy and time…which, as it turns out, I have more of than I’d thought. There are, however, in the interest of full disclosure, a few things to which I will turn a blind eye. Ignore. Half-ass, if you will.

One of those things is currently our upstairs loo. Keep in mind, like many modern households, we have two of them. The upstairs commode, the one attached to our master suite is the one that is currently a huge pain in my...um, again, I’m not meaning to turn this blog toward scatological humor by any means, butttttttt…Okay, you can groan now, but I did warn you a few days ago that my sense of humor is just really awful sometimes and tends toward ridiculous puns. I love puns! In this case, though, the puns are (mostly) unintentional and the privy really is becoming a problem.

It runs. Hell, I think it actually runs more than some of my former fitness training clients. It has been running since we moved in. We’ve replaced the rubber gasket inside two or three times in less than two years. Before my honey trooped off to become a denizen of warmer climes, he replaced the entire interior workings of said porcelain throne, in the hopes that I wouldn’t have to deal with it in his absence. He wasn’t, I’m sure, actually thinking of me. He just knows how I “fix” things when he’s not around. I have a proud lock on the title, Jury-Rigging-Princess. I can half-ass nearly any repair inside or outside the house in order to “just get by.” I hate fixing toilets…but I hate listening to them run even more. Come to think of it, that john is as noisy as some of my former clients, too.

Anyway, I have a history rigging up fixes for running toilets, (ask my parents about my college powder room "fix.")but this time, I took the high-road. I simplified the “interim-repair” – ohhhh, great term, not jury-rigged, but an interim repair, I like it -- and instead of using twenty feet of twine and shoe laces to shore up the float inside the tank to keep the water from leaking into the bowl, I just used eight inches of elastic. It’s perfect, people!! I hooked it around the arm of the float, and the top of the tank, when replaced, exerts enough downward force to keep the elastic loop in place. When flushing becomes necessary, I just lift the top slightly, whip out the elastic, flush, wait for the tank to refill, and then, replace the elastic. How much easier is that than going down to Home Depot and figuring out which “black rubber thingy” to buy, emptying the tank, splashing the cats with water, run, Lucky, run…curse my short attention span!! See? I just get distracted and would rather not bother myself with repairing it correctly, as my poor hubby has requested. He even offered up the services of one of his squadron-mates. “Nah, Baby, I’m fine. The elastic doesn’t bug me.” Poor guy! That’s one of the other things I tend to half-ass: listening! ;-)

Once I saw the decorative potential in the elastic loop, I decided to go hog-wild. There are many different colors of elastic and when curled nicely, it looks like your lav has been gift-wrapped. Pretty, for any occasion. You can change it up for parties or try different colors to go with the seasons. Try it yourselves!! Save the trip to Lowe’s Home Improvement, save gas, and save the environment at the same time. Make a pretty privy!!

See? Half-assing some things can sometimes be desirable!! So, remember, just because your significant other is off dealing with his or her own plumbing issues half-way around the world, it doesn’t mean that you can’t fix your own powder room…your own way. By the way, I have to run. I need to grab some sparkly, metallic, bling-bling elastic to go with the black and white décor of the upstairs lavatory. If I can’t find what I’m looking for, I may just have to paint the whole room to match the elastic!

Um, and,Baby? If you're coming home anytime soon, I'll brief you on how to jury-rig the john like a pro! :-)

Peace, love, and pretty privies to one and all!