As a new homeowner, and one who never had to change out an old toilet seat, I was pleasantly disgusted in finding that my pet rabbit, Dory, had successfully chewed the plastic off the top of the hinges that attach the seat to the...well...base. I mean, I have definitely carried dirty toilets OUT of houses, head literally inside the bowl at one bump in the road...but that is another story...
Now you might say "pleasantly disgusted" is an oxymoron. Well, hold on and and listen to this logic. If Dory hadn't chewed through and probably swallowed that white plastic covering that covered the white plastic screws? I? Would never have had to clean that area and seen how gross and poopy it was! And I never would have seen the plastic "+" sign and thought, "Hey, wait a minute, I wonder if that thing can be screwed off with a Phillips head screw driver!"
So, while on "vacation" the other day, I went after that thing with a vengeance and low and behold yes, I could just turn the screwdriver in a clockwise motion (I know, normally it's righty tighty/lefty loosey) and the whole thing started loosening up! Well, my mind started getting really excited about this home improvement effort and soon I thought that I would get this thing off and go buy another one! Brand new toilet seat! Yipee! (yeah, I know how pathetic that sounds, even now...)
And the thing was? That crappy toilet seat had come with the house AND it never fit the actual toilet to begin with. Now, I'm a germiphobe about only a couple of things: toilet seats and bathroom sinks. Nothing turns me off more than going to some guy's house and seeing a big poo stain in a toilet or pube hairs in the sink. OK, long hairs in showers gross me out, too, but not as much. I mean, if you think about it hairs in sinks OR showers must be relatively clean...but I digress.
That toilet seat that I was dealing with? That vacation toilet seat? Was a "round" one but the toilet? Is an oval one. And for whatever reason? Either the folks before me were unusually tall or used a step stool to mount the thing, but suffice it to say that this toilet was never a friend to me (e.g. I sit there like a child swinging my legs until they go numb each time I use it.) Family members may or may not have mentioned it and guests would never have dared, because it was abundantly clear to anyone who knew me that I? Was way in over my head with this house. All they had to do is look at the ever-growing list of "home issues" I had listed on the fridge, on the wall near the calendar, in my journals, on my ARM...and know that mentioning an obvious ill-fitting commode situation? Would send me right over the edge of my rain gutterless roof.
It never once occurred to me in three years of paying the mortgage on this "fixer upper" that I could a) change a toilet SEAT without having to change out the whole toilet or b) well, maybe there was just an "a" to this foolishness. I mean, I had SEEN toilet seats hanging around on hardware store walls! Why hadn't I put one and one together? And why in the HELL had I put up with that stupid sliding around, pinching my butt, nasty as- misfit of a toilet seat for three years?
So I took that thing off, threw it on the porch and because the germiphobe thing comes and goes? I briefly thought about carrying the old one with me to the hardware store! I peered at it one last time and thought, "That thing has seen one too many derrieres and has probably soaked up a whole lot of stank in its time." So I took a quick pic of it, ran down my front steps without even locking my front door, drove to the hardware store and picked out a nice clean new one, paid for it and drove even faster back home.
Now, if you know me you know that I didn't bother reading the instructions because I always have to do things twice. My way and the right way. I waste time, get myself whipped up into a horse lather and always regret it but it's a stuck-in-the-mud pattern, one that I would need therapy for but I don't have time for because of this kind of thing. Three/ok four stupid things happened:
- I put the wingnuts on upside down and had to re-do them
- dropped the screwdriver in the toilet--twice
- slammed the toilet seat on my knuckles and
- got the whole thing done in the reverse order and had to do it ALL OVER AGAIN.
Yup. That is me. I am that. But now I have a clean toilet seat, one that not only fits my commode, but my arse, the arses of those who will one day need to use it and now? All I have to do it saw it down a little or build up a little throne step.
That? Is next on the list.
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