duct tape and bailing wire....

... right? With maybe a wrench and Philips head screwdriver, there is nothing you can't apply these two items to for a quick fix?  I was not the one who received the mechanical, Mr. Fix-it skills from the family gene pool. But I do know about wire cutters and needle-nose pliers.  Handy little items, and other than band-aids and antibiotic salve, pretty much all that populates my tool box. If I can't fix it with that: it's well beyond my ability.

There was a problem with the plumbing here back in the fall. If you are interested (it is not gruesome or distasteful), read on. Amusingly, or not so much, because it was in the bathroom the man of the house very rarely occupies, he has been profoundly unconcerned about a satisfactory resolution to the small crisis. Small, meaning: easy to resolve the first time it occurred, as well as the second, third, and possibly fourth. But when it became chronic, there was conversation, with the hope that there would be an actual repair, providing a long term solution.

After reading a novel about some creepy medical stuff (organ harvesting) and learning the difference between 'acute' and 'chronic', I began to apply those terms to situations, events, people that have nothing to do with medical situations. So the plumbing issue here is occasionally acute as well as ongoing in the chronic sense. Due to the fact that no one has applied the proper repairs to resolve.

If my dad knew I had repaired with wire, not once but twice, he would have a cow. I'll not use the customary southern expression of  'rolling in his grave', but do believe he would be here and tinkering in the toilet tank if he were more available. When I opened the lid on the tank months ago, to watch the plumbing in action and discover the relatively insignificant cause of the dysfunction, I thought:' I can fix that with a piece of wire'. Using what was most handy, meaning a wire of too small a gauge to effect a long term solution.  And recently, just last week, replaced the corroded, broken wire with a much larger gauge, serious, hard working piece. When it wears through, from flushing and constant wet, I will use a piece of coat hanger wire!

I understand, after a bit of inquiry, that the actual part needed to resolve the problem permanently has been riding around in a vehicle for weeks. And will require some small effort to install: taking things apart and possibly making a wet mess (similar to a 'hot mess', but the opposite, as wet will put out a fire). But it might require more plumbing skills that I can muster, so I am reluctant to take the thing apart and make it un-usable. Creating a 2:00 a.m. crisis when my bladder thinks it is time to get up.