TROOPER BOB AND THE FLAPPER

You know how one project snowballs into another?  You know you start out by cleaning up a spot on the floor and the next thing you know you are completely reflooring the whole house?  No?  It’s just me?  Oh, come on now.  I know I can’t be the only one.  I know it happened to Nurse Meme and Trooper Bob and it just happened to Gladys and Kahuna. 

Gladys stood in the bathroom towel draped hair dripping wet.  She stood with her blow dryer in hand.  She looked for a plug outlet but couldn’t find one.  They hadn’t lived in the little cottage long, just a couple of days.  It was cozy and snug but had been built in a day and time where plug outlets were few and far between.  She sighed and went in search of a place in which she could activate the dryer and keep her hair from frizzing.  Not just frizzing, but kinking up like fine grade steel wool.   She searched high and low for an open outlet. 

Kahuna was stretched out in his Lazy-boy, being anything but lazy.  The keys on his computer clicked happily along, without turning “what are you looking for” he queried. 

“Oh, you know, an open plug.  One that doesn’t have two dozen things plugged into it” she replied while crawling on her hands and knees under the dining table.

“Well, I guess I could put one in the bathroom, on the wall with the light switch” he suggested.

“Can you?  Would you?”

And that is how it all began.  With the want of one outlet. 

That too is how it started years ago with Nurse Meme and Trooper Bob.  It started with a toilet flapper that wouldn’t seal.  You all know the irritation not to mention astronomical water bills that goes with a bad flapper.  Not the roaring 20s, bob haircut and fringe dress, bad flapper.  Have I ever told y’all my grandmother was one of those?  A flapper, not the one that goes in the toilet tank but she may have drank gin from a bathtub, but we will never know.  I digress.

Nurse Meme called Bob in from the shop where he was hiding, smoking cigars.  He was retired.  He could do that, or so he thought. 

The little intercom which stretched the 50 yards from the house to the shop crackled and squawked.  “Bobkmlknkj;  Hurry! Mmmmmph” TB carefully snuffed out his cigar so he could come back to it later.  It sounded like there was some sort of an emergency, but as he had learned in his many years as a state trooper, your emergency wasn’t necessarily my emergency.  He kicked off the grass from his boots and entered the kitchen.  He looked in all the usual places for Meme.  He looked in the kitchen, in the laundry, in the study and in every single one of the four bedrooms.  He didn’t call out for her because he knew she would be calling him, shortly.

 “GAWDDAMNIT BOB!  Where the hell are you?” inquired a pissed off Meme as she stomped out of the guest bathroom.

 “Don’t get your panties in a wad.  I’m right here.  What’s your problem?”

“You are my gawddamn problem, but right now it’s this sonofabeech toilet” she answered pointing at the toilet.

“Looks alright to me” he responded as he eased over to the commode and opened the lid.  “Sounds like the flapper is stuck.  Didja try jiggling the handle?”

“Yes, I jiggled the damn handle.  I ain’t an idiot.  It needs a new flapper” she insisted. 

TB opened the tank lid and jiggled the flapper, the water stopped running “there ya go.  I fixed it.”

Meme flushed the toilet and the flapper stuck open again “no you didn’t.  Now go get a new flapper and don’t do any of that duct tape and balin wire fixin.  I want it done right.”

TB replaced the lid and rolled his eyes “it’s fine.  Just put a sticky note on the wall tellin everybody to jiggle the handle.”

“You can go to hell too.  I ain’t tellin nobody to jiggle no damn handle.  Get the parts and fix it” she admonished and turned and walked out adding “and do it now.  I am trying to clean this damn house.”

Trooper Bob sighed and reluctantly headed to the hardware store mumbling the whole way “fixit right, I’ll fix it alright.  Aint nothing you can’t fix with a little JB Weld, Duct tape or balin wire or all three.  Why I glued a guy’s toe back on with JB Weld and duct tape.  Tellin me to fix it right.”  He continued his lament as he wandered through the aisles of P-traps and plumbing supplies.  He passed a couple of other men doing the same.  Talking to the spouse they left at home on a mission to complete their honey-do list.  He looked at all the different styles, settled on the cheapest fix and headed back home.

Not really wanting to fix the flapper on the toilet, he procrastinated.  He went back to the shop and re-lit his cigar, turned on Paul Harvey and hid a little while longer.  He was kicked back in his chair, almost asleep.

 “GAWDDAMNIT!  I asked you to fix the toilet!  What do you think you are doing out here smoking ceegars and sleeping?” 

“I think I’m smoking my ceegar and takin a nap is what I think I’m doin” he rebutted.

“Get in there and fix the damn toilet.  I need to finish cleaning” Meme declared and stormed out.

“That damn woman has one mood, pissed off” Trooper Bob mumbled.  He gathered his tools and the new flapper and drug into the house and set about replacing the flapper.  He was just about finished when he torqued a bit too hard on the nut and the whole tank shattered.  “Gawddamnitsonofabeechmotherforkerinrashnashin, Meme!!!! I NEED TOWELS!”  He yelled as her emergency had become his emergency.

Meme came running and at seeing the mess began pulling towels from the linen closet and throwing them his way.  “I’ll get the mop” she yelled as she ran down the hall

“I NEED A WRANCH!” as he furiously tried to turn off the corroded valve.  Water pouring and sloshing all along the wall and floor. 

Meme returned with a fresh batch of towels and a mop “you need to turn off the valve.  That water is going all over the place.”

“No shit Sherlock!  If I could turn it off I would.  I need a wranch” he shouted. 

Meme ran to the junk drawer extracted a pair of channel locks and ran back “will these do?”

“I reckon they’s gonna have to.  Get the hell out of my way” he barked as he lay down in the water and manhandled the valve which dissolved with the pressure of the channel locks.  “Well shit fire and save the damn matches, go turn off the valve to the house.”

Meme started to run then stopped.  “I don’t know where the valve is.”

Trooper Bob, now saturated and mad as a wet hen stomped down the hallway sloshing leaving a trail of toilet water in his wake. 

“You’re getting the carpet all wet” Meme yelled after him.

“Yeah well, too damn bad” and he stomped out the front door.

Once the water had been turned off and the mess had been cleaned up the two loaded up in the truck and drove to the hardware store to pick out a new toilet. 

“Oh, look at this one” she enthused “it’s tall and white.  I like this one.  It says it saves water too!  But since we got that old toilet out, we need to redo the floor.  Let’s go look at the flooring.  I always hated that linoleum.   I think we need to lay tile in that bathroom.  And look at these shower doors.  They are much prettier than the ones we have.  The old ones are so dingy looking”

“They aren’t dingy, they are frosted and the floor is fine.  Just needs to dry out a little” Bob responded, seeing more and more work piling up as they made their way through the store. 

“And that wall paper!  Atrocious.  I mean who wants wallpaper of old timey toilets all over their bathroom walls” she queried. 

“Evidently, you since you was the one put it there in the first place” he mumbled seeing yet another project.

“No, I didn’t.  It was there when we bought the house” she mumbled back as she picked out paint and paper, flooring and shower doors, new light fixtures, mirrors, cabinets with marble tops, new faucets and shower heads, towel racks and toilet paper dispensers and of course the new toilet.

That is how the repair of a three dollar toilet flapper ended up into a complete bathroom remodel. 

All Gladys wanted was an outlet to plug her blow dryer into.  That’s how her bathroom ended up with new drywall, paint, mirror cabinet, lights, molding and floor.  All she wanted was an outlet.