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when one drops a closet bolt
Tuesday, December 24 2002
The tile grout had been put in yesterday and so today it was cured and I was free to install things like toilets and sinks. The toilet was the highest priority, since a bathroom isn't really a bathroom until it can dispose of bodily wastes.
Somehow, though, I managed to drop one of the closet bolts irretrievably into the floor as I wrestled the bowl into position above its PVC receptacle in the floor. The closet bolts are the things that secure a toilet both to the floor and to the plumbing. Without one, the toilet isn't fully attached. Not having a replacement bolt, I tried using a conventional bolt in several different configurations. But it kept pulling up through the floor and demonstrating time and time again that it was not suited to the task. My frustration grew to such a hellish state that I found myself irrationally repeating phrases over and over to myself out loud, things like "It's not going to work" and "What was I thinking when I did it that way?"
Finally in desperation I charged off to Lowes and bought a toilet installation kit (complete with a new wax ring, closet bolts, and several things I didn't actually need). I knew that if I didn't get it today, I'd have to sit on these projects all Christmas long.
In the end, I got the toilet working, and instead of having to sit on the project, I got to sit on its fruits. I have to say, the American Standard toilet creates a much more satisfactory flush than the Kohler brand toilets used in the house's other three bathrooms. The new toilet laughs in the face of even the most onerous fecal assignments.
In the evening I began painting the new bathroom a dingy shade of yellow to go with some of the detailing on the fancier ornamental tiles, which alternate with plain tiles in a ring circling the room three feet above the floor.
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