Adventures in Plumbing

The day started out nice enough, a quick run to Home Depot (45 min. round trip) to get some plastic stakes to put up an electric fence to shock kitties and then off to a movie, Lemony Snickets, A Series of Unfortunate Events, with the wife. In the afternoon I planned on replacing the faucet in the bathroom. I have already replaced the faucet in the kitchen, so I thought I knew what I was getting myself into.

Getting the old faucet out was easy, but while I was removing the drain and poppet I damaged the existing J-trap. Back to Home Depot, 45 more minutes. I get the new trap on, the new drain in, with poppet, and get the faucet bolted down. So far so good. I am running late, though, since I still needed to replace a spoke on my commuter and install new tires for the next day. Anyway, back to my tale. I only have to connect the water to the faucet and I am done. Unfortunately, this is where it all goes wrong. The lines are b-a-r-e-l-y long enough, and won't seal. To make matters worse, I cracked one of the bendy lines. Off to Home Depot again, 45 more minutes. I return from my latest errand running to find that, while the new lines are long enough, the fittings aren't the right size. At this point I would cut my losses, but I have had to turn off the water to the house and can't turn it on again until the faucet is connected correctly. Back to Home Depot again, this time to return the lines and get the right size fitting. All in all it took me all afternoon and 4 trips to Home Depot to get my tasks done for the day. All told, 3 hours worth of back and forth to Home Depot... I wonder if they deliver?

Oh, yeah, the movie was great! We left our 5 month old son with some friends and he behaved marvelously, a relief to his mother and I. We haven't left him behind anywhere in the past, so it was pretty hard to do.