Ugh....plumbers

So my husband thinks he can do plumbing. I'm not sure why he thinks this. We have had a foray this summer where him and his dad tried to replace a garbage disposal that the guy at the store said would take a 'half hour, tops'....which turned into a festival of hammers and screw drivers against metal & bigger men than are possible to fit under the sink, fitting under the sink. I got nominated to be the 'girl under the sink' seeing as they weren't fitting too well.

We ran into a problem as well when we had to do the 'righty tighty, lefty loosey' thing and found out the moron who put the kitchen sink drain in, did it backwards, so all the while I was lefty looseying, I was in actuality, righty tightying. Yeah, don't ask.

Anyways. Last night my husband has this brilliant plan to fix the tub faucet that had started out as a light, but annoying drip, and has now escalated over the course of about a year to a full on stream that is costing us more than we care to admit on our water bill.

He goes to the 'friendly neighborhood home improvement store for dummies'.....and was promptly told by the tweeny girl that sold it to him, 'Oh, it's very easy. Just pull out the old one, and push in the new cartridge.'

Yeah, right.

He gets home and proceeds downstairs to shut off the water (Hey, at least he did that, right?), and the next thing I know, he is banging on what I know now to be the shower. He was able to get the faucet off, but the 'cartridge thingy' did NOT come out, I repeat....DID NOT come out at all.

After a while, all of the remaining plastic that was in the most remotest possibility to be grabbed on and pulled out to gain access to the 'cartridge thingy' was now nonexistent and broken off, leaving one small metal pipe.

He went back to the 'friendly neighborhood home improvement store for dummies' and talked to the tween again and got himself a lock wrench this time to attempt to remove the 'cartridge thingy'.

Upon arriving home, I had already begun to dig on line for those DIY sites to see if I can find anything with pictures, video attached, etc. You'd be surprised on how much there ISN'T. Frustrating! I did find one video and it proceded to stop 3 times JUST at the part I needed to know about. 3 times!! This means I had to watch the commercial endorsement of Dove Body wash 3 times in order to see the boring video of a 50-something guy with bad facial hair and a probable plumbers butt crack to get to the part where it conveniently geeks on me.

The next attempt by the hub was to pull with all his might at the small brass pipe that was part of the 'cartridge thingy' to see if it indeed could be popped out like the tween at the store said.

So, needless to say as he was pulling with the new nifty lock jaw pliers, POP off comes the pipe.

Yep, now our 'cartridge thingy' would NEVER come out. And of course, we didn't have the trap door behind the closet that my parents assured us we had like all other homeowners so that the pipes could be gotten at easily. No, we didn't HAVE ONE OF THOSE DOORS!!!!

We opt out of calling my mom to see if we could stay the night because with the lack of shower, that wasn't going to be very nice if we couldn't find a way to make only the TUB valve stay off. After finagling some and trying different combinations, we finally found the magic one that gave us a toilet, sink, kitchen sink and NO TUB.

I had to grab the phone and call the dreaded plumber. I haven't heard yet today what the outcome of it all is, but it sure can't be good.

As much as I say I don't really care, I DO because we don't really have any extra cash lying around, but the thought of having to do a sponge bath again, that doesn't include a beer & a massage, is not on my list of favorite things.