No one likes to hear the words “The toilet is leaking”, except one who stands to profit from the repair. Since I heard them from the tenant of my rental house, they were far from being music to my ears. I anticipated the possibility of a crack too serious for duck tape, or a broken pipe. But as I peered closely at the great white throne, I could see no sign of a defect. Sitting idle, it seeped no moisture.
I deduced that the problem must lie in a sin of the flush. To test this theory, I activated the mechanism. All seemed well until I noticed that water was dripping down the side of the tank, starting from the top. I removed the lid. The tank was not overflowing, and it had refilled to the proper level, halted properly by the float. However, the flexible plastic tube that normally shoots water down the larger tube to help with the flush was dangling free.
Flushing again, I watched the little tube shoot water, and become erect as it did so. It tried hard to squirt right at the top edge of the tank, and it would have succeeded if I had allowed it. “Eureka!” I said.
Relieved at my easily-treatable diagnosis, I secured the wayward hose with a twist-tie that was no longer needed to keep a bread-wrapper closed.
Not every problem, in a world that is afflicted with both entropy and Republicans, is so easily solved. I am pleased that this one could be.
–cosmicrat, April 25, 2012
