Jane the Plumber

So as most of my/our readers know I took the long journey home today, to practice my right as an American and vote! Well despite the fact that I did NOT want to come back to this place I call school, I made the long journey back. After my, actually quite fast, drive back, I parked (practically a mile away) and gathered my things and started the treacherous hike back to my apartment. When I finally made it back I immediately checked my toilet to see if maintenance had made a visit to fix it (the "chain" had broken off of from the handle.) (The "chain" was actually a plastic rod with a rubber chain attached to it. The plastic rod was connected to the handle). From the outside it was fixed (and I was actually quite excited), but unfortunately it was running. So I jiggled the handle, it’s still running. I lifted the lid and messed with the flapper valve, it was still running.

I decided, then, to take a break from toilet fixing and call Nate, because I told him I would once I got back. While we were on the phone I just so happen to mention that my toilet was running. I then proceed to, well attempt to, describe the problem. Despite my wonderfully detailed description, of the toilet thingy that holds the water in the back and the little rubber thing that covers the hole the water goes out of and the big blown up balloon thing that sits on top and the pipe that needs a freaking lid or SOMETHING, Nate was utterly confused. So after much discussion (and maybe a swear word or two) we get this ingenious idea to have me take pictures of the workings of the toilet, send them in an email and see if Nate can tell me what to do. After taking about nine pictures Nate realized his email wasn’t functioning properly. So after much dismay, we got another ingenious idea. I take the pictures, send them to my email, and then have him get on my email to check them out. So I email the pictures to myself. Nate then downloads them to his computer and tries to explain to me what’s wrong with it and what it should look like. Finally we come to the conclusion that I’m missing a very (very) important piece of toilet working. Our next step was to figure out a temporary solution (to what seems like a permanent problem because maintenance obviously doesn’t know what the heck they’re doing!)....So finally after much toiling over possible solutions, we came up with one:


What the toilet workings inside the tank of my toilet looked like before our fix-it idea: (notice the hairspray bottle holding up the “big blown up balloon thing that sits on top of the water” so the tank doesn’t fill up)





What the toilet workings should look like:





What we came up with to fix it: (yes, that is a rag stuffed into the "the pipe that needs a freaking lid or SOMETHING")





Just call me Jane the plumber ;-)
Love, Meghan

PS oh, and no they didn't fix the buldge in the living room...