The Bathroom Blues

   What a tattoo ta ta!   When worms began to  move across the floor and slugs appeared in pairs climbing cupboard doors, with others, heralds of strange deeds, slipping between naked feet as they made their slimy way towards the toilet (watch the angle fellas!), it was deemed appropriate, nay vital, that something drastic need be done. Have you chanced to come across such creatures as these, and others stranger yet, such as steroid enhanced earwigs the size of caterpillars, very large caterpillars, sneaking around the edges of your bathroom? Well, then you know what a trip to the loo during the night turns into: a fear of dark places, a.k.a Achluophobia, and creepy crawlies, a.k.a Entomophobia! (You always wanted to know that didn't you?). A serious chat with the landlord became essential.
     We didn't even have to twist his arm, or refuse rental payments, his response was equal to our own.
    Walls were torn out and replaced with gypsum board, the old bathtub was removed, as was an effective but outdated ceiling shower, and a newer and much smarter shower cubicle, replacing both, was installed--nice! Installation also of a larger window was a lovely and unexpected extra.
    When the construction phase was finished I offered to paint the walls, much to the relief of Harry (the landlord), who suffers a fatal reaction to paint fumes, including Acrylic. He described to me a couple of years ago how, by a quirk of fate, his wife saved his life during such a reaction. She was driving by a job site where he was working as a carpenter, and decided to pay him a surprise visit, only to  find him unconscious on the floor of a room that had just been painted, .Apparently  years of exposure to paint fumes had created a severe allergic reaction, now a threat to his life. (Try explaining away such life saving phenomenon as his wife’s sudden wish to see him!). To continue: my youngest son, Dominic  (a plumber--heh! heh!), in one of those warped moments in time, was heading out to his truck, having just said goodbye to us, and was on the point of getting into the vehicle when I decided suddenly to ask him if by any chance he had some paint left over from his recent house renovation. “Yep,” he says, “I’ve got some cans in the truck. I was just on my way to the recycle depot to drop them off.” What do you call that? Fate, karma, or just plain luck! Well, and wouldn’t you know, there among the soon to be discarded tins was a full gallon of paint identical to the color Janet and I had decided on. Crazy, eh. Such a guy, our youngest. He also did the plumbing (every home should have one, you know, a gratis plumber), helped lay. . . (ahem), laid the floor tile (I helped! Honest injun!), which was no easy task. You ask why? Okay. The floor, which would soon be covered with large 12 X 12 inch ceramic tiles in a warm, marble swirl tan, was a devastation of ill prepared loose dry cement, wood patches, small mountains, and wide valleys. There was, incongruously in that devastation, a small section of flat undamaged cement, a very small section, otherwise it was a war site, a battle field of ruin. Consequently a royal pain in the (ahem) ankle bone! The adhesive the landlord brought to us with which to secure the tiles was old, and weak--what an understatement-- it was a water based wall tile glue! I should have made a bee line to Home Depot at this point, which a clear headed person would do, an error that led to. . . . wait for it, you ain't heard nuthin' yet!
     Dom, did a great job of tiling that unforgiving bathroom battleground, but even he could not change the highs and lows to equal levels. Eventually the nasty job was done--with much use of helpful expressive expletives. The next day I grouted the grooves. More than a few four letter catch words were employed that morning, never mind the permanent disabling of my knees, and the brutal seizing up of my lower back. The grouting of that uneven floor was finally done, and commiserated upon by Janet as I wept on her shoulder. I waited the required time for replacing the removed toilet, (removed by the plumber to facilitate laying the tiles upon which it would sit). Although placing a toilet was a task I had not tackled for many a year I was game for it. The object in question had been taken out and placed in the entrance porch and now this old man was taking it back in. Confident beggar that I am I gamely hefted it up--achieving a lift of approximately three inches--and grunted it into the bathroom. Alas, I was about to meet my Waterloo, and I do mean WaterLOO!

     Placing the two wax seals that the plumber (you know him) had set aside for me to use and positioning the washers and bolts which would secure the toilet base nearby for easy access, I proceed to install the long missed commode. Please do not misread that last sentence. I wobbled the basin, worked it down lower and lower, managing to get the bolts through the base holes whilst doing so, finally setting it flat on the tiles. Now I simply had to tighten the bolts for a secure fit--who wants a wobbly loo--and finalize the job.
     One bolt tightened, the other in the process, just one final twist and. . . snap! The (expletive) bolt drooped loose and useless. Having parted company from whatever held it to the floor it now lay supine in its porcelain hole. I tried to hum a chorus of "Amazing Grace," hoping to gain comfort from it’s soothing message, but with sobs gargling the melody I was without solace. Stumbling to the phone I called the plumber who suggested calmly that I refrain from unnecessary worry over the mishap, because if the toilet was firmly on the tiles, and did not rock when manoeuvered, then everything was  probably fine, and that I should go ahead and turn on the water, fill the tank, and flush the toilet. Do that Dad, and "Bob's your uncle," he says. Relieved, tears wiped away, I proceeded to do as advised. Turn on water, fill tank, flush toilet. From the base of the commode gushed Niagara Falls! Chaos! At that point I remembered I didn’t have an Uncle  Bob.
     With water pouring over my shoes, the flow attempting to drag me under, I grabbed for the intake tap, and frantically turned the water off, but the damage was done. Janet and Jesus wept this time! I was too stunned to weep. I grabbed an armful of towels, and threw them, and myself, onto the bathroom floor. It was too late, the new grouting around many of the tiles had been washed out, the tidal wave, having filled the empty grooves slipped under the tiles, softening and destroying the miserable goop that held them down. The deluge proved it was water soluble. I didn’t appreciate the manner of proof, and I was devastated.
     I sopped up the water as best I could, gazed in stupefied disbelieve at the mess, and phoned Dominic. Appropriately stunned, sincerely surprised that such a thing had happened, suggested I not worry, and said he’d be over first thing in the morning to deal with the it. He also agreed with our decision to use the shower when necessity presented itself. I thanked him, closed the bathroom door, and decided that whatever I'd done in my past lives that demanded a payment such as the horror of the last two days must have been terrible. I now waited for the next shoe to fall. It did.
    Sure enough, 9 a.m found Dom lifting the toilet from its base and exposing a gucked up mess of misaligned toilet pipe wax and a broken bronze bowl support. It appears that in my unfounded confidence as a plumber I had inserted a wax ring the wrong way around much to its distress. When I pushed down on the toilet bowl to join it to the wax ring below it slipped sideways into the hole, thereby blocking the flow of water and creating “A Perfect Storm.”
     The broken metal support was expertly repaired by my plumber son. Naturally. Cool as always, he generously exculpated me from blame re the wax fiasco saying he hated that particular type anyway, and what had happened could have happened to anyone (Yeah!). He then put down a new wax seal, placed the toilet exactly right, settled it, tightened the side bolts, reattached the water intake, flicked the chrome handle, and let the water rip. Hurrah! All's well that ends well, as Bill once penned, and now all that was left for me to do was pull up, and relay the damaged tiles. Oh! How pleasant are simple joys.
     What a hideous, nay hateful job! On my knees again, this time cleaning up wet, viscous, useless adhesive. Sufficient to say that in relaying the tiles I used a much more powerful glue, a proper one, one that stayed down, and more than that held the tiles forever to itself.
    A few little fixes here and there followed. Things came slowly to their close and when Harry finished putting in the  baseboards, and Janet had prettied everything up in the most charming way the saga of the bathroom came to an end. I wish I had taken some before photos of the room, because after photos will not have the same impact, but needless to say the change was apples to oranges in effect. Thank heavens when things turn out well whatever took place before can be seen as amusing in hindsight. Give it a little time though, that's my advice. Like a few years, maybe!