Standing in my kitchen as still as a deer, I heard the faint sound of water running. A tilt of my head helped me to zoom in on the sound, so I thought. I still couldn’t identify the origin of the hissing sound.
Inching closer to the stairway leading upstairs, the sound became louder. One carpeted stair at a time led me to the culprit…a running toilet. At the same time, I made this discovery, my son emerged from his bedroom and said, “Oh yeah Ma, that toilet has been running all day.”
I called my brother (handyman) and he made a futile attempt to talk me through turning the water off near the base of the toilet.
“Either push the knob or pull it, to shut the water off.”
I pushed and I pulled the knob I saw, but it didn’t budge. For fear of breaking something, I left it alone. Instead, I took a creative approach. I went to the basement, rummaged through my Christmas tote and grabbed a random piece of three-inch wide ribbon.
Back up two flights of stairs with the ribbon in tow, I was ready to work on the toilet situation. I removed the porcelain toilet tank top. Then I lifted the long metal piece that had a plastic blue ball, wrapped part of the ribbon around the metal piece and another part around the toilet handle. The running water sound subsided. Success…a temporary fix.
The next morning while I was at work my son called and said, “Ma, I fixed the toilet.”
“Oh, you were able to move the knob?”
“No, I pulled it out of the wall.”
After arriving home I inspected my son’s handy work. Hmm. He pulled something from the wall, it looked broken to me.
Time to admit, there are some things you just can’t do yourself.
Time to call for help.
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