"It wasn't chewing gum. It was epoxy glue. And all of a sudden you know a whole damn lot about submarines." - Rock Hudson, Ice Station Zebra

The four-bolt on-wall toilet. My nemesis.

It continues.

The Mrs. had enough of me working every weekend getting the house in “Wilder” shape. I’ve got a list as long as an Adam Sandler movie, but every weekend it never seems to get shorter.

The Mrs. enforced a weekend without (mostly) work. It was glorious. I slept. I drank beer. I’m not sure that there’s much else that enriches life, besides randomly yelling at your children. I know, I know, I could beat them, but that takes too much energy. Stupid children, running and stuff.

Anyhow, Saturday involved a large amount of sleeping. It was time. I’ve been either working or, well, working at home enough that it was cutting into my drinking family time. Unfortunately, like the Fox Network, I have high standards, yet a low budget.

As The Mrs. talked me into not working, I slyly whispered “Except for fixing the toilet,” into her ear. I’m sneaky that way, since I knew it would take forever to fix the toilet. Okay, really I thought it would take about fifteen minutes. I usually underestimate these things, so, fifteen minutes translates to fifteen hours or so.

I guess I under estimated.

When last we left, well, the toilet was fixed, and fixed properly, but just not quite right. I had to fix it one last time. It turns out that there is truly a limit to the number of times that a man who has been drinking can pull a fragile porcelain toilet off four bolts and not drop it and put a horrible hole into the toilet so that it no longer holds water.

I guess that number is five.

I went to Home Despot, and bought a tube of porcelain patching epoxy (the hole was quite roundish and small), and completed adding epoxy (The Boy’s comment: “We can afford epoxy? We’re rich!!!!”) and caulked the toilet with massive amounts of caulk. It’s all hooked up to the wall, and ready for, well, whatever it is one does in a toilet. In 24 short hours, well, I’ll turn the water on to the American Standard toilet made on January 13, 1987. Maybe I’ll never have to think about it again. Please.

After spending hours on the toilet, well, I joined The Mrs. in the front room. It’s been coldish the last two days, so I thought I’d burn a crutch or two and a footstool to warm us up, along with some particle board that was a college shelf for my books. (I have no idea where the cinder blocks went.)

As I was sitting basking in the warmth of burning crutches, one pane of the glass door keeping the fire in the fireplace exploded.

I began sweeping up the shards of glass, and, recalling that if the door to the fireplace is just a smidge open an alarm that you can hear in North Carolina begins to shriek, I put the first thing that came to hand in front of the door. It was a nice cardboard moving box. Thankfully, The Mrs. remarked that boxes fall into the category of things that are “flammable.”

I pulled the box down, and began to work the hot coals in the fire, moving them apart so that the fire would die down soon.

So, tonight brought a broken toilet and an exploding fireplace.

I’m still trying to epoxy the 1,743,312 pieces that the fireplace door went into when it shattered. I guess I need to buy a new one, if for nothing else than to keep Pugsley, our 19 month-old from eating all the glass.

That's okay. We’re rich. We can afford epoxy.