from this day forth, February 8th shall be known as...

...International Fix-the-Toilet Day

Warning: this post contains euphemisms that don't do their job very well.

The water pressure at my house, it ain't good. So there's a risk, especially when you're losing weight at a fairly steady pace, to, um, clog things up. This happened. At my house. Yesterday morning. Belly and I were the only ones home.

I figured I'd just let things sit for a time while I went off to school to shape a few young minds. I told S. about it and he was willing to show me how to use a plunger, but not willing to take the next step and actually DO the plunging for me. Whatev.

S. took a couple hours of personal time yesterday afternoon to fix his own toilet, which had internal I'm-always-running-and-I-don't-know-when-to-quit problems. As any good handyman would, he made more than one trip to Lowe's (on the second trip he bought me a new fancy schmancy plunger--it works like an air pump, pushing air through the pipes. Pretty darn cool). When I got to his place after school, he was knee deep in parts and tanks and stuff I didn't recognize, and I wanted no part of it, so I took Belly for a walk in her boots. We like walking in his neighborhood cuz it's a change of scenery. Plus it's really fun to look inside people's houses--easier over there somehow. Bigger windows, I guess.

I was wearing the gorgeous pair of earrings that Wonka had given me for Christmas. I should know better than to wear these with a scarf because the scarf pushes them up and out of my ears, but I'm an idiot. As Belly and I were crossing the street, I felt one of the earrings fall out of my ear and onto the ground, but try as I might, I couldn't find it and my thighs were freezing off. I even had Belly try to sniff around and help me find it, but no luck. And I'll admit, I am one to give up easily.

But I was sad.

After S. had finished fixing the toilet, I whined a bit about my earring that Julie Wonka had given me.

"Do you know where you were when you lost it?"

"Yup. At the corner of Washington and Greenleaf."

He convinces me that he's really good at finding stuff like this, citing as evidence a time when he found a friend's ring. So we put Belly in the car (she had to help us make sure we were at the right spot) and went to the site of loss. S. had his lantern and his flashlight and his detective hat on (okay, there was no hat, but still). He found it within five minutes. I told him he's my hero. So so proud of him. And so happy to get my earring back.

I made dinner while he CONTINUED to work on his damn toilet. I whined a little bit about my poor toilet and how he wasn't paying IT any attention.

After dinner we stopped by my house during the course of some errands. I poured some Rid-x crap down the toilet, but it was still looking a little sketchy. I whined a bit more about not knowing how to use the plunger and, because the plunger he'd gotten was so fancy schmancy, he gave in and plunged my toilet. This, my friends, is love. He was scared, but he did it. And the toilets lived happily ever after.

And for his birthday in April, I just may sign him up for the Handyman Club of America. He deserves it. That, and perhaps I'll get him a little Sherlock Holmes hat and cape.

My hero.