I Wish I had a Man Around the House

The refrigerator started making an ominous thumping noise a few days ago like the bass line from the trailer for a bad science-fiction movie.  Two days later it was colder outside than in.  Our old plumber had died.  Thats how long we’e lived here, we have outlived our service guys, so I had to find a new one.  I had one in mind like this:

The opening shot of sooooooooooooo many vids.

But he answered the phone with a dense Russian accent,  so I had to adjust my fantasy pipe layer to something more like this:

Yu vant your pipe laid?

He came out and said the freezer drain and gotten plugged and turned the bottom of the freezer into an ice berg.  A thaw, an extra copper wire to heat the drainpipe more effectively. and a couple of hundred bucks.   Do I really have to mention he did not look like any of these Slavic dreamboats?  Amazingly, at least I didn’t have to buy a new refrigerator.

I love my house, but I hate taking care of it.  There is a constant sense that I should be doing more and since my daily schedule is rather relaxed.

I suppose it’s not exactly The Impossible Dream.

So when my tub began draining slowly (and for a boy raised in the swamps to notice means the water is REALLY  leisurely on its exit,) I decided to fix it myself.  It helped my confidence that I had done this before.  The seal is actually a small bucket shaped thingy (wittily called “a bucket.”) that hangs from two brass rods that connect to the back of the plate that holds the little switch.

I got the bucket and wires, took the bathtub drain apart, with a great deal of assistance from the cat, and found out,  naturellement, I had gotten the wrong part.  It’s not the bucket, its the lever the bucker connects to. I hd simply allowed myself to be swayed by the dream that a plumbing device was called a bucket.  On the bright side, the wee little bucket is just the right size for the Barbie Doll Diorama I’m still planning on creating.