Some things don't come naturally
The exciting life of the pretend-a-freshman
By Aisha Stern, blogger
April 13, 2008 | noon
I am good at a great deal of things, whether it be school work or random hobbies. So it stands to reason that there must be some things that I am not naturally talented at doing.
I just always tend to find this out the hard way.
Some people get to find out that they aren't good at various things through classes or with a friend or parent nearby. Me though?
I have to find out when there is no one nearby, in the most disastrous of fashions.
The most recent example came during spring break. I spent the week at my boyfriend's place in Cleveland, and intended to revel in the pure joy of A) seeing him for the first time in seven weeks and B) not having to worry about school work or college applications.
My third day there, I spent most of the morning curled up in bed, alternating between napping and reading. These are two things I hadn't had time to properly enjoy since some time last summer. After a while, I got up the motivation to shower. When I finished, I noticed that the toilet was running, and, having dealt with this many times at home, I figured I could easily fix it on my own.
I had broken, yes, BROKEN, the toilet within four minutes.
The toilet in his rental was connected to the wall. When I lifted the lid to figure out why the toilet was making that “I'm never going to finish filling with water” sound, I dropped the lid in the tank and it broke through the bottom. This made a hole that was easily the size of my fist and also cracked the tank a significant amount. As the water from the tank poured out onto the bathroom floor, the toilet continued to try to refill the basin. The water it was pumping simply flowed out of the hole in the tank and added to the puddle that was now making my toes go numb.
My first instinct was to try to get the water to stop. I grabbed what I now realized was the thing that was causing the water to fill the (now broken) tank and pulled it up... so that it could snap right in my hands.
At this point, I was too panicked and angry to even attempt to swear like a sailor. Instead, I said the F-word over and over again, quite possibly turning the air blue.
With one hand holding the valve shut as tight as I could, I considered my options. My cell phone was in the bedroom. I was in the bathroom. I was not properly attired to shout for help, and, anyway, the doors were locked and the neighbors most likely at work.
I suspected the knob that was attached to the pipe led into the tank might do something, but, after breaking two different parts of the toilet, I was not about to break a third. If I was going to break a third part of the toilet, I had to do it with my boyfriend's knowledge and approval. I was panicking and feeling guilty enough without adding to the mayhem and/or stupidity of the situation.
Even though it took me perhaps fifteen seconds to dash from the bathroom to the bedroom and back, (managing to not fall over when my very wet feet failed to grip the hardwood floor), it felt significantly longer.
I speed-dialed my boyfriend with one hand and held together the broken balloon-like piece with the other. It's a testimony to how great he is that he did not lose his head. Not only was he calm, he was able to understand my panicked babble speak, which my mother has compared to hearing someone speak a vaguely familiar foreign language--with a mouthful of marbles.
Things could only go up from here, right?
He told me that the knob that I had noticed would, indeed, shut off the water to the toilet. He also promised to call some area plumbers to see if any could come by to fix, which at this point, was obviously actually going to be replace, the toilet. He called back within five minutes. This interval allowed me to call my parents, hoping they would have some advice on what to do. Being my parents, they spent most of the conversation laughing. All the five-minute interval gave me was a growing sense of panic and aggravation over the fact that the valve had failed to shut off the water completely. My boyfriend's news wasn't much better: all the plumbers were occupied until the next morning.
Five minutes later, he had tracked down his landlord who was on vacation and called me back, telling me exactly where I could find the water meter and its knob, which would shut off the water supply to the house until he could get home to fix it.
I failed to find the water meter. This would turn out to be not entirely my fault, but it didn't help my growing suspicion that I am actually the biggest idiot to ever walk the face of the earth. Or at least around my boyfriend's rental.
Twenty minutes later, the water was shut off, thanks to one of his landlord's friends who was willing to come over to help me. This meant I could now sit and wait. Also known as breathe and figure out if I still needed to cry or not.
I didn’t. I spent the rest of the day waiting for my boyfriend to come home, not sure what his reaction would be. The situation was so absurd that his only comment about it was "you broke my fucking toilet!" followed by a lot of laughing.
By the next afternoon, we had a new toilet installed and an understanding that if I ever had an urge to try to fix the toilet again, that I would call someone first. The rest of our week went more according to the original plan of relaxing and enjoying being around each other for the first time in weeks. This was a relief after the chaos of my third day there.
I think what I learned from this is, that while I am indeed a smart pretend-a-freshman, I am not the type who was meant to do home repair. I am good at a great deal of things, from school to knitting. I guess I don't have to be good at fixing things around the house.
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For more from the mind of Aisha Stern, check out her blog at fusionofme.blogspot.com