@!*$# -or- Plumbing Woes beget Phred Throes

So Saturday I discovered water in the cabinets under the kitchen sink. Investigation soon turned up a connection (referred to henceforth as the rubber tube thingy with the c clamp on it)which was loose or simply shot. Closer examination revealed that the metal valve (referred to henceforth as the little metal sticky-out pipe thing) was severely corroded and half had broken off. There was now very little of the little metal sticky-out pipe thing for the rubber tube thingy with the c clamp on it to hold onto. Dilemma.

This small equation will explain the problem:

PhredJohn - Apartment + House = Do It Yourself

Okay, fine. More equations:

PhredJohnHouse + Home Warranty = Trade Call - Do It Yourself

Problem. The Home Warranty bitches aren't open on the weekend.

PhredJohnHouseHomeWarranty - Weekends = Do It Yourself for Immediate Gratification or Wait for a few days.

I chose Immediate Gratification. A Call to the father type and a trip to Sears netted us a new garbage disposal unit ready for installation.

The problem is not putting it on. The problem is getting the old one off.

Let us move past all the punny Phred can't get it off witticisms and get back to the blog entry shall we?

Here are some words I've become intimately aware of over the weekend:

Heave, pull, wrench, jerk, pry, wedge, strain, chisel and mallet.

Phred Phun Phact: Wrenchettes are groovy

So here is the problem...



You see, The Devil won't come apart. It's like crazy fossilized and wouldn't budge. What's more, now as I try to turn it clockwise to unscrew it the sink flange turns as well when it needs to remain still or go in the opposite direction. This, of course, causes:



So the new dilemma consists of a couple options.

1) Take the kit back to Sears then call the Home Warranty people and wait to have half a sink and a dishwsher that works again.

2) Continue to try and get that little monster out from beneath the sink and put the new one in myself to feel a sense of accomplishment.

I have yet to decide what to do. If I had another pair of hands I might have more luck. Maybe if I lodge Kittums in the sink flange it won't turn anymore and I'll have the resistance I need.

Things that make you go Hmmmm.

Situations like this make me wonder...



Maya would most likely tell me that the garbage disposal is primitive and set to designing some new laser disintegration device that would destroy any garbage we placed in the sink. I would most likely then suggest that a Meson Converter would be a better idea since it would allow us to change the garbage into more useful matter rather than destroying it and allow us to recycle 100% of all our waste products. Maya would then change into a large orange space creature with a tail, bulbous faceted eyes and a black mane and slap me silly. Changing back she would explain that only Dorcons use Meson Converters and that my statement was a terribly insensitive and ignorant thing to suggest. Maya would be right.

Maya rocks.