Down Home: Check the simple solution first

When it comes to household repairs, I’m a beneficiary of low expectations.

We own a home (OK, technically, the bank owns it, but we’re making payments), and that means things break down. Anybody who wants to live a simple, stress-free life shouldn’t own a house. Stuff always goes wrong. If Benjamin Franklin owned a home, his famous quote would have gone like this: “… in this world, nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes and home repairs.”

Joanna and I have been married 34 years, and we’ve lived in a house a total of 31 of those years. That covers more plugged toilets and clogged drains, blown fuses and balky appliances, patched walls and painted rooms than I could count.

A history of debacles

The biggest home-repair mess I ever got into happened about 25 years ago, when I tried to seal our foundation. If memory serves me correctly, I tried three times before Joanna made me call somebody who knew what he was doing. And $2,500 we couldn’t afford later, we had a foundation that kept water out. Like you would expect a normal foundation to do.

To tell you the truth, I’m better at observing human behavior than fixing broken stuff.

So, I know Jo has almost zero confidence in my ability to repair anything that involves water, electricity and more than one moving part.

Sometimes, she’s more subtle than others. I’ll come home from work, and she’ll say: “The whatchamacallit broke. But don’t worry, I already called Larry.” Larry is our local home-repair genius.

Other times, she’s more transparent than others. This usually happens when something breaks right in front of both of us. I’ll say something like: “Don’t worry. I’ll get my tool box.” And she’ll say something like: “Oh, Honey, I wish you wouldn’t.”

Fortunately, my self-esteem has nothing to do with a toolbelt.

But usually, I can handle balky toilets. If you have a good plunger, and you’re determined, you usually can prompt a toilet to flush smoothly.

I met my match

I met my match, however, when we returned from vacation a few weeks ago. The toilet in the half bath didn’t work right. When we turned the handle, a bubble gurgled up from the bottom of the bowl. Then it drained slowly. Then the water only filled the very bottom of the drainy-part.

Everyone who lives in our house said, “It wasn’t me” when we discussed what might have caused the toilet to act up.

I used the plunger. Over and over. Across several days.

The toilet always flushed, but slowly. And it always bubbled, too.

Gradually, I began to fear the problem wasn’t anything that ever entered our sewer line from the toilet. So, I agreed when Jo suggested we get a plumber, another Larry, to check it out.

We didn’t tell each other, but we both saw visions of a torn-up backyard and hundreds of dollars flushing down the toilet.

To the rescue

Larry the plumber arrived at our house while I was at work. And he left just a few minutes later.

Turns out, the tiny hose attached to the float in the toilet tank came loose. It’s supposed to squirt down a pipe that directly fills the toilet bowl. But instead, it was helping fill the tank. And so, according to the immutable laws of plumbing, our toilet didn’t work right.

Jo paid Larry the plumber a fair plumber fee for fixing something even I could have fixed if I had thought to check the tank and not the sewer line. A fair plumber fee still will bite your wallet.

Jo called to give me the news. And she was sweet about it.

“Let’s just think about how much money we were afraid we’d have to spend and not how much money we had to pay,” she soothed. And when I thought about it her way, it wasn’t so bad. Not as bad as a torn-up backyard and money flushing down the toilet.

This reminds me of many issues in my life—spiritual issues included—where I get all worked up. I worry about the worst-possible scenario and never think to check out simple solutions.

It’s a pattern, I know. But life would be easier if I’d always approach situations from simple to complex, and not the other way around.