Time Down The Drain

Normally I like to have my family's house on the Cape open by this point in the year. However, I don't need to tell people around here that a very tough winter was followed up by a mostly chilly spring and, honestly, when we there were still piles of snow on the ground in April going to the beach was the furthest thing from my mind. The good news is that the last week or so has been really nice and I was finally inspired to go down and (mostly) open the place up for the season. After doing this for a few years I have started to feel like I have it down to a science. It's not nearly as complicated it as it sounds, I just have to be willing to shoehorn myself under the house to do some minor plumbing; all the while reminding myself that my grandfather was a very wiry man. [Sidebar: for some reason this week has been filled with me doing things I never do. I spent two days fixing my car and then I found myself under a house working on plumbing, which is one of the two home repairs I really hate doing (electrical work is the other). I don't know what has gotten into me.] Anyway, this year opening was going to be a little different, because first I had to complete a scavenger hunt.

The best money spent all year long is when we hire a guy at the end of the season to blow out the pipes for the winter. Before we started doing this the first day the cottage was opened always involved a torch and some soldering iron to close pipes which had cracked open while frozen. That has yet to happen since we started hiring this guy and even if there is a leak the work is guaranteed so they come and fix it for free. He also offers to come open it for us in the spring if we wanted him to. The thing is I have yet to need to call his services in the spring and I think that he is getting annoyed with my cockiness because the last couple of years he's started throwing curveballs at me. Two years ago he unhooked a water meter for the first time ever which I did not see and so I when turned on the water the following spring I did so without connecting it first and found myself kneeling in a puddle. Then last fall he fully took apart the shower handle and left it for me to assemble. Apparently this has been bugging him for as long as he has been blowing out our pipes, but the handle was installed upside-down and then the screw was stripped, locking it in this position (admittedly it bothered me a little as well, but since I don't know a damn thing about plumbing I was willing to live with it). Well, last fall he finally got the handle off, but didn't have a replacement screw on him at the time. If I was going to turn the water on I would first have to get my hands on one of these screws.

On the surface this sounds like fairly easy task. After all, this is the cottage we are talking about. My father and I spent three summers building it and left behind boxes and boxes of randomly-sized screws. However, none of those were going to fit in the shower because this was a special plumbing screw. I've noticed plumbing problems can never be solved with everyday tools or the materials from other home repairs. And that's the thing - in this day and age where everything is expected to be able to work with everything else, how can you make you still make a product which only serves one purpose? Seriously, there is nothing else this particular screw could do except hold a shower handle. Even worse, the company which makes this screw took it to another level by then making this special screw which does one thing hard to find. I went to two hardware stores in the area and neither of them would sell me just the screw. They were more than happy to sell me a brand-new handle set which would include the screw, but they couldn't sell me just the screw. Standing in the plumbing section of this large hardware store chain listening to the kid try to sell me on the benefits of a new shower handle even though the one I have works just fine I had to fight back the urge to rip open the box and just take the one part I needed. I would never do it, but in that moment I could understand why people shoplift.

In the end I found the special screw in a plumbing supply store. (Because the only thing more annoying than plumbing projects requiring special tools is having to go to a special store to get the necessary tool. Also, I have notice plumbing supply stores are never near anything else which would help you get the rest of your errands done. It is like the entire experience has been designed to frustrate you into hiring a professional.) Fortunately these guys didn't make me buy an entirely new handle, but they also would not just sell me one screw - I had to buy a smaller kit which included several special plumbing-specific things which I can assure you I will not be using, so I essentially spent $5 for one screw (better than $20 for a new handle I didn't need). I will say this much, I was damn careful putting that screw in place and made sure it did not get stripped a second time. The good news is that despite this little detour the rest of the opening went mostly as planned and the house is now open for the season. As always I am more than happy to let people swing by and stay for a few days, but this year I have one condition - make sure you notice the shower handle is now facing in the right direction.