How Not to Fix a Leaky Faucet

Day 1

Come to the realization that the water that has started dripping from the faucet trunk is running down under your sink into the cabinet.  Swear at the sink, the counter and just in general.  Then shut the water off to the offending piece of kitchen appliance.  Next, make a trip to Home Depot, in the next town, thinking that you will get some useful information with some general questions regarding your brand of faucet.  Wear lots of cleavage and some sad helpless eyes.  Wander through the entire plumbing section of Home Depot.  Find no one.  Look helpless long enough that another customer takes pity on you and answers your general questions, but not with anything that is immediately helpful.  Go home and find a youtube video that uses roughly the same type of faucet.  Dismantle most of the faucet.  Pry on the middle piece a while, as this is the piece that needs replacing and “should pop right out.”  It won’t.  Ask your roommate, who is considerably taller than you, to try to pull it out because she should have more leverage.  Laugh a little when she punches herself in the forehead when the vice grips slip loose.  Feel really terrible when she tries again and bloodies her nose. Load the dogs in the back of the pickup.   Drive to Lowe’s, in the next town,  to ask about purchasing a cartridge puller. Feel disappointed but hopeful when the nice plumbing guy tells you that he doesn't have it, but Home Depot might.   Purchase various other necessary things for around the house.  Try to open the topper with the key.  Try some more.  Help fit roommate through the side window of the topper to try to open the topper from the inside.  Drive back to Home Depot with the roommate in the back of the pickup with the dogs,  and purchase said puller after the guy at Lowe’s describes it, but tells you that Home Depot might have it.  Drive home with your cartridge puller. Give permission for roommate to pry a pop rivet loose from the inside of the topper to get her and the dogs out of the back of the pickup.  Carefully open the little box that the cartridge puller comes in.  Use the puller to easily extract the whole middle part of the guts of your faucet.  Give up for the night because it is now eleven pm and you have to work tomorrow. 

Day 2

After work, take the guts of your faucet, along with the broken decorative plate thing from the top of the faucet, to the helpful plumbing guy at Lowe’s, who takes 5 seconds to hand you what you need.  Confidently go home and slide the new faucet guts into place.  Begin to reassemble the faucet in reverse order of the way the thing came apart. Get the thing back together…mostly.  Take it back apart to try to figure out why the handle is pointing downward.  Do the previous three steps several times.  Have a moderate tantrum and hand the tools to your roommate.  Realize that either you, in the process of this project, or whoever put this all together the first time, has stripped out some threads on some of the parts.  Stomp your feet.  Have the roommate search for the right pieces on line.  Give up because it is again 11pm and you work in the morning.

Day 3

Drive to Home Depot again after work.  Return your carefully repackaged cartridge puller.  Stand in plumbing long enough to be irritated enough to begin making loud annoyed comments about the lack of help in this place.  Wait for the high school kid who finally shows up to go track down someone who knows anything about plumbing.  Show the plumbing lady a picture of the kit that is shown online on Home Depot’s website.  Try not to come unglued at the lady when she tells you that she doesn’t have it and it could be here in three to five business days.  Drive to Ace Hardware.  Show the friendly older gentleman at Ace the picture of the pieces that I need.  Nearly burst into tears when he says he doesn’t have it.  Resolve to buy a new faucet instead.  Triumphantly bring home the new faucet.  Realize it is for a four hole sink and you have a three hole sink.  Panic a little.  Call the Ace Store in town and ask if they will take a return.  Profusely thank the girl who tells you that she will.  Drive to the Ace store.  Trade the four hole unit for a three hole unit.  Return home again, triumphant.  Ask the roommate for help because her arms are longer.  Offer encouragement as she attempts to figure out how to remove the old faucet, now mostly in pieces, from the sink.  Get very frustrated and have a meltdown when, between the two of you, you can’t figure out how to get the thing loose.  Call any available fathers or grandfathers for advice.  Read online accounts.  Instruct, the now very frustrated and tired roommate how to take it apart.  Offer words of encouragement and attempt to hold the faucet still while she attempts to unscrew the nut holding the whole contraption together.  Decide that none of the tools currently in our possession will work in this tight a space.  Give up for the night.  You guessed it, it is 11pm and you have to work tomorrow.

Day 4

Gather more tools from any available male family member, which they say will do the trick.  Take them home and try a couple out.  Drive to Wal-Mart.  Buy a basin wrench.  Return home and again encourage the roommate, as she wedges herself under the sink to try to loosen the offending nut.  Cheer and have moment of celebration when you are finally able to pull the leaky, miserable, root-of-your-problems faucet loose.  Apply silicone to the baseplate of the new faucet.  Adjust the plate on the back of the sink.  Push the pipes coming from the bottom of the new faucet through the middle hole.  Cringe when the roommate starts laughing sarcastically.  Take a look at the six inch gap between the pipes coming up from the house and the ones coming down from the new faucet.  Burst into tears a little.  Offer encouragement to the roommate as she tightens the new faucet into place.  Give up for the night.  It is only ten o’clock tonight.

Day 5

Go to Ace again after work.  Haul in piece that is too short to connect the house to the faucet.  Laugh maniacally when the nice plumbing man jokingly says, “buy two of them.”  Let him describe exactly how things should go together under the sink.  Smile as you pull the second connecter from the shelf in front of him.  Cram yourself into the cupboard under the sink.  Twist everything together as instructed.  Turn the water on.  Spray yourself right in the face as you lay wedged in a cupboard.  Turn the water off and take a moment to recover from drowning.  Make another attempt at screwing everything together, while saying mean words to it in a nice tone.  Remove yourself from the cupboard before turning on the water.  Tada.  Take pictures of the water running from the new faucet with you cell phone so that you can send them out as Christmas cards.  Sit down on the couch and have a beverage.  It’s Friday.  No work tomorrow.

Epilogue

Take your roommate out for an ice cream cone for putting up with a four day sink project and the assorted degrees of meltdown involved in the project.  If this ever happens again, seriously consider calling a plumber.