The gift of plumbing

I've long had a hunch, and on Saturday it was confirmed. God gifted us indoor plumbing for the purpose of keeping us humble.

The kitchen sink has had a slight drip for...too long. Of late, it has been getting worse and I procrastinated until I simply couldn't any longer. Saturday, I determined to finally fix it.

In theory, it should be simple: remove the stupid garbage disposal (which we never used) as it had rusted through and was the leakage problem, then rebuild the piping without a stupid garbage disposal. I've learned to take photos or repair projects, and did, but being a bit nerdy and maybe a bit spectrumy I need to draw it out...helps me flesh things out in my mind.

To me, home projects are judged by the number of trips to the home improvement store. I set the over/under on this one at 2.5 trips. If I could only go twice to the store, and get it done, I'd say it was a victory. Over 2.5 and it would be a loss. My usual is around 4 trips, so, feeling this was an easy endeavor, the low 2.5 over/under was set.

Step 1 - disassembly

Tearing things apart is the easy part. At least, it's supposed to be easy because you don't have to be particularly careful. Removing the stupid garbage disposal would be nothing more than unscrewing things, and it was. However, the plastic composite ring that held on the stupid garbage disposal was impossibly not going to come off. I had to use and angle grinder and literally cut the thing off. This is akin to removing a rusty nail with an axe. I cut, off it came.

Step 2 - assembly

I looked at the situation, I drew my sketch. Actually, I drew the first part of the sketch. What's pictured above is the final composition of several iterations and additions. I took trip #1 to the home improvements store, surprisingly found the section quickly (unheard of) and surprisingly quickly found the parts I needed (also unheard of). After navigating through all the Christmas shoppers buying cute decorative doo-daddies (while I was buying pipe), I paid, navigated jammed-full parking lot, then I was gone.

The first part, the "basin/catch thing" went in too easily and things were going too well. (This can't be good, I thought.) And, sure enough under the sink, the parts I thought would do the job weren't even close. What was I thinking?

So, back to the store trip #2. Same thing...section, parts, navigate holiday shoppers (there were more now), navigate parking lot (there were more now), gone. The next parts were assembled, sort of. The little diagrams on the packaging and the in-studio plumbing vids I'd watched all looked so easy. Everything matched up, everything fit. Here, with my head stuck underneath a dark and damp sink and my arms twisted in wrong ways, nothing matched up, nothing fit. And, I needed another part.

So, back to the store trip #3. A few hours in now, I was getting perturbed. I had to humble myself and do what men hate doing...I decided to ask for help.

The kind home improvement store man was answering questions left and right. (It was even busier now.) I waited...more humbling. When my turn came, I bent the knee, showed him my photo of what I had going on under the sink.

"That's not gonna work," he said.

Ugh. "What am I doing wrong?" I asked kind of pitifully.

"Water flows downhill, not uphill," he informed me.

So, this was the real lesson in humility yesterday. Normally, with a smart-alec answer like that (which does not answer my "what's wrong" question, but was merely injected to kick me while I'm down), I would have responded with something of the same kind...because, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. I might've said, "It doesn't flow downhill when it's pumped uphill," or "Well, I'll be doggone, that's it! Water does flow downhill. You're a smart man!" Actually, I probably would have said, "Good for you, that's correct," as if congratulating him on his accomplishment of water flowage knowledge, then I would have repeated my question, "what am I doing wrong?"

However, I was too beat down, and stuck. I kept my mouth shut. To get an extra jab in, he added something about how my design would also create a venting problem. Then, he gave constructive advice: take this part out, get one of these, it slides in and out, adjust it to where it fits, easy. To be fair, I think he was growing weary from all the stupid people and stupid questions...evidently people come up with crazy ideas, like water flowing uphill.

I chuckled, "Easy for you maybe," I said. This was trip three, I was stuck, I didn't exactly know what he was telling me to do, I was too embarrassed to ask after having been passive aggressive plumbing-shamed. He seemed pretty confident, so I headed out, with little confidence this would work.

Navigate holiday shoppers, the checkout lady said, "Oh, you're back," (great, now they're starting to know me and my ineptitude, more embarrassment), pay, navigate parking lot, gone.

Back home, I was getting closer. What I was doing was a case of building things out piece by piece. If I had a truck full of parts outside, I could have been done in 30 minutes. The back-and-forth and shaming was what was draining me. The system I was building seemed as though it was finally going to work, but, it just wasn't lining up right...about an inch of a misalign. I needed one more extension part for a slight drop. The last piece of the jigsaw was close, but not exactly right. By this time though, I was getting tired and that added to the frustration. Plus, I couldn't dare go back and face Mr. Water Downhill and Mrs. You're Backagain. I went to a closer, but more pricey, hardware store. I found the part I thought would work and the Santa-looking man there assured me that part was correct. For the first time since trip #1, I felt I might get it to work.

Back home, again, holding things under the sink, looking, figuring, head scratching...nope, this part won't work. Santa was wrong. A male threaded head can't mate with a male threaded head...it just doesn't work that way. Argh! Seriously?! I have to go back again?!

I scratched my head and figured I'd retrace and try what seemed promising the last time...just take a fresh look. To wrap this up, I finally got it to work by mixing and matching parts in the kits I'd bought. The flexible "get rid of this" part that Mr. Water Downhill told me to toss out did the trick. That part was able to flex the one inch drop that I needed to get things to mesh up. And just like that, it was complete.

Tighten, tighten, tighten, tighten, tighten, and tighten. Then, pray for no leaks. Water back on...

Based on my prior plumbing endeavors, I was stunned...there were no leaks. And a day in, so far, so good. I'll keep praying.

Stats

5.5 hours of work
3 trips to home improvement store
1 trip to hardware store
1 trip to home improvement store to return unused part (yet to be done)
1 trip to hardware store to return unused part (yet to be done)
1 make-me-feel-dumb comment from the guy in plumbing
1 "back again" from the checkout lady
1 "that'll work" from Santa lookalike

With the over/under on trips to the store set at 2.5, and me hitting 6 trips counting the returns, this was clearly a fail.

Moral

The moral of the story is that my hunch was correct...God's purpose in giving us indoor plumbing is so that we stay humble. It's either "stay humble," or get slapped down and "get humbled."

_{I go by @crrdlx or "CR" for short. See all my links or contact info at https://linktr.ee/crrdlx.}