In the middle of tiling the basement, the cold water shut-off valve in the main bathroom upstairs decided to start leaking. So I decided just to shut it off (like it’s for). That goes over for a while, but Ben absolutely didn’t like brushing his teeth in hot water. I mean, at first it works if you let the water run very slowly and use only the cold, lead-leached water left in the pipes all night before the hot water reaches the faucet. But like most kids, he turned on the faucet full-force and used up all cold pretty fast.
So the next thing that happens is he’s screaming about the burns on his little fingers and I run up there and, choking on the steam filling the room, shut it off as quickly as possible promising him I will “fix it tonight.” Well that was bullshit. For weeks after that we were forced to both use the sink in my bathroom every morning until one Saturday I had an extra 15 minutes to kill and decided fix it–for real this time.
That was semi-successful, but then something else went wrong. Basically, my sink sprung a huge leak that I couldn’t fix. You see, when you own an older home, for some reason even the simplest plumbing repair can turn into a six-month long project (or in my case a year-and-a-half) because something old is always attached the new thing you wanna put in, and those old things break off in your hand like a Melba cracker. And that’s basically what happened with my sink. The actual sink had a hole in it that had been patched by the previous homeowners and the patch came off in my hand.
So the whole sink was useless so I tore it out. Then I decided the whole bathroom was useless–at least that’s what it became because I started ripping out the cabinet with the sink, the tile on the walls, the wall paper, and anything else I could wrap my 14 1/2 inch pry bar around. Was I feeling some anger at the time? Yeah, yeah I was, but you know what? Ripping that bathroom apart felt so good after all I had been through, especially when a particularly stubborn place, like the old counter top in the photo here, wouldn’t budge and I pushed and pried and used all my strength against it.
And finally, when it gave way after all that force and struggle, it was very gratifying. Would I say it was like an orgasm? Well, for a single mom with no boyfriend, I would say yes, yes it was. It was the best orgasm I’d had in a while. So much so that I poured a glass of wine, sat back looking affectionately at my work, and determined that the next day, I would haul the junk outside and start ripping out the floor tile.
DIY Recovery 