Bad bad VOW has been around Beckdawrek too much!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

We’ve been in SCal for a while now, staying with the Daughter and her family. Both Mr VOW and I try to do our share, and help out as much as we can.

Background: The city where the Daughter lives treats water like gold. Each home is given a baseline allocation, depending on how many peeps live there. Over that allocation, the city comes to the door, looking for arms and legs in payment. All faucets, showerheads, etc, have flow restrictors.

The kitchen faucet had been slowing down. I mean, it took at least two forevers to fill up the big pot to cook spaghetti. I knew the sprayer was crudded up with sediment. So I got out the gallon jug of descaler, and I really didn’t want to do the “twisty-tie-baggie-business” on the actual faucet.

So I had Mr VOW remove the sprayer gizmo, and plopped it in a cup full of descaler.

When the time came to recombobulate the faucet…it didn’t. Mr VOW fiddled with it. Son-in-law fiddled with it. “Gotta call a plumber,” was the joint conclusion by the Y chromosomes.

The next day, Mr VOW starts calling. And calling. And calling. He probably would have had better luck getting a brain surgeon who makes house calls. One plumber business was a puzzle. The main office is in the small town where my daughter lives. But all their plumbers were in Palm Springs! I should have gone to plumbing school instead of The Big U!

Finally finding someone who would show up THE SAME DAY, we get the sad, sad news. The faucet must be replaced.

I BROKE the faucet by trying to help out and take care of it!:smack:

Mr VOW made a run to Home Depot and bought a new kitchen faucet with the same bells, whistles and birdcalls. The nice plumber showed up bright and early the next day and installed it.

And my checkbook is crying.

Upside: new faucet works like a champ, and it takes no time at all to fill up the big pot for spaghetti!
~VOW

2

??the new faucet didn’t come with a set of illustrated set of instructions and parts list for installation?

3

Girl I feel ya. These are, indeed catchy.

4

Husband is of an age where he doesn’t perform contortions required of plumbing installations.

Son-in-law is not of the handy tribe.

Me, I cleared all the vaious and sundry CRAP out from under the sink at the start of a flood. I was able to dam up the flow as it crossed the kitchen and headed to the pantry (EGAD!). I thought the SIL had turned the water OFF under the sink. While Daughter tried to crawl under the cabinet to figure out where in the Hell the water was coming from, I noticed the partially uninstalled old faucet had the universal handle in the “on” position. I turned it off. AHA! Leak stopped!

See upthread for un-handy SIL.

One side of the kitchen had sopping wet towels. The other side had many large plastic shopping bags filled with slightly soggy undersink crap.

I am so glad I am talented with a checkbook!
~VOW

5

Wow, VOW. I’m impressed with the mess. Damn, I’m rhyming too much (and such),

6

Good to hear! My first thought when I read your faucet woes was that the Authorities had cut the water pressure due to the water situation. You may not be able to water your lawn much but at least you can fill up the ol’ spaghetti pot in a hurry, and that’s something!

And now you’ve made me hungry. Every time I see the word “spaghetti”, I salivate like my Bernese Mountain Dog when I’m ladling out the beef stew. :smiley: I’d come over for dinner but it’s 3,000 miles.

7

Sometimes the best tool for a job…
When we got my condo, when the time came to change the kitchen faucet, we discovered, to our horror, the builders decided to save money by omitting cut offs under the sink. That caused another trip to the big box store for shut-off valves. Second nasty surprise was the water valve for the toilet. Seems that they make a valve/pipe combo that had no way of being changed once installed, so one was SOL when turning the valve did nothing to stem the water flow. The solution was yet another trip to the big box store, purchase a second unit and swap the valve stem assembly. Thank the Lords of Kobol that the cut-offs for my side of the building were in my basement, and I knew where they were!

8

Give 2.Bro any sort of Thing That Needs Tools, he’ll stare at it… and then quietly say “let’s call 1.Bro. He’s got tools.”

Give 1.Bro any sort of Thing That Needs Simple Tools Only, he’ll sigh like a drag princess at not being able to use the big power tools; I mean, what’s the point of having all those big, beautiful power tools if you can’t use them, huh? He used to just jump in and start putting stuff together any which way, but after this one time he helped me assemble a sofa bed, we didn’t need to use any gaffer’s tape or soldering, and the sofa bed in question can be disasembled and reassembled (see: no gaffer’s tape and no soldering), he now actually looks at the Thing With Pictures before starting to put stuff together (yay!). It’s amazing how much better furniture and lamps look when they do not include gaffer’s tape.

I’m very proud of myself because the telephone showerhead in my house has always leaked a little but it was leaking more and more, and the last time I was home I changed it. 5€, half an hour with the monkey wrench and now I have a leak-free showerhead. Yay!

9

My plumbing expertise consists of knowing exactly how to turn the water off. It’s one big switch at the well pump.

10

I can’t even make the phone calls! Fortunately, I’m a champ with the checkbook!

Mr VOW has never been the most mechanically inclined, but he was always willing to at least TRY. But Parkinson’s is a thief, and it has stolen his flexibility and his fine motor skills. He can still hunt down whatever you need via telephone, though, and I’ve got the Almighty Checkbook!
~VOW

11

You make a good team :smiley: That works out much better than expecting to be able to do everything oneself.