What you are about to read is a true story. Names may or may not have been changed to protect the innocent, but every word of it is true.
So...I was giving the baby a bath with my wife when he started squirming and then inadvertently or intentionally whacked me across the face. I responded in my normal way by looking towards the heavens; as I have a tendency to do when I get bad luck. Whilest I am looking upwards I notice the light fixtures are rather rusty. I say to my wife, "Woman, did you notice how rusty those fixtures are?" She laughs at me, and replies, "There are many things in this house that need changing." Well, I take this as a full frontal assault on my manhood and offer to take her to Lowe's today and change them out. She is happy, I pound my chest like a gorilla, and all is well.
Next, we throw the baby in the car and drive to Lowe's. She picks out some new lighting and I agree to buy them. Then she says...o, but they don't match the faucet. "No problem", I say, "would you like for me to change out the faucet as well?" " O yes! That would be lovely," she says. So, we go to the bathroom aisle and she falls in love with a new faucet. Everything is great, right? Wrong, she then decides that she likes different lighting to match the faucet. We had back to the lighting aisle and she picks out new lighting. Unfortunately, this lighting has a much smaller base. I explain to my wife that the old lighting is going to leave an ugly rim where it used to be and the paint will be an off color. It takes her a while to grasp this...but, she does. Then she turns to me, "You know, that strip of wallpaper has been rotting off. Why don't you take it down, repaint the bathroom, and then we can put up these fixtures." Are you kidding me?
Next, we had off to the paint aisle and purchase paint and painting supplies. With cart full we head to the cash register, make the purchases and head home. I take down the old light fixtures then get under the sink to take out the faucet. Well...the cheap jackass who last owned the house somehow managed to fuse the nut from the faucet to the water line (luckily above the water cut off.) I bust out the WD-40 but no dice. The copper wire turns instead of the nut. Great, I WD-40 the water supply line to the cut off valve and that one turns. Whew! I can replace the water line later.
Next, I take down the shower curtains, empty the bathroom, and remove the casing around the light switches. I'm about to start taking off the wallpaper when my wife says, "How are you going to paint behind the toilet?" I reply, "I wasn't going to. It will be hard to see back there." My wife answers, "O no, that would look horrible." Can't you take the toilet out like you did at the old apartment?" Seriously? So, I turn off the water to the toilet and take that out from the wall. When I do this I discover the O ring has disintegrated. Great! Now, the toilet bottom is in such bad shape that I have to go back to Lowe's tomorrow and most likely get a new one. I doubt they sell those rings on the side and even if they did I have no idea how I would get what is left of the old one out of the toilet bottom.
Anyways, I take down the old wallpaper, tape all the edges, throw on two coats of paint, and drop from exhaustion. I'll have to get the rest done tomorrow as I am exhausted and feel like I'm going to die. All this because my son splashed me in the face while I was helping with the bath, I opened my big mouth, and refused to let the subtle insult to my manhood go. This is the most unfortunate chain of events I have seen in quite some time.
Crispin
Ps. When I get the strength I'm going to the store to buy some Guinness. I would say that I earned it!
