I'm gonna reckon 98.4% of you are expecting me to write about Will Smith. Heck, I would expect me to write about Will Smith.
It's only been a few days, but I think every joke has already been told. I'm not sure what I can add to the conversation, other than the ridiculously obvious assertion that smacking people is wrong -- and if you can't figure out THAT on your own, you might need more help than my little column can ever provide. By the time this prints, I hope the Oscars news cycle will be past its sell-by date and smelling a little rotten.
Good thing, then, that I can fall back on my specialty: toilet humor. Let's just say Will Smith wasn't the only one with a potty-mouth this weekend.
A few days earlier, I had been in my bathroom, doing what one does in their bathroom, when something seemed amiss. I went to flush the toilet and instead of the friendly "kersploosh" noise, all I was heard was the dull clang of flusher against porcelain. I'm no plumber, but I know that's no good.
I carefully displaced the four dusty bottles of seldom-used hair conditioner and 1-3 assorted cats perched on the back of my toilet and removed the lid. "Yep," I thought to myself, "that's the inside of a toilet, alright." Thus concludes the extent of Shane's plumbing knowledge.
But I'm an intelligent person. I should be capable of analysis, troubleshooting, and a fundamental understanding of gravity. After several minutes of careful examination, the problem was clear. Obviously, the flushamajig doohickey was broken.
Let me explain it in technical terms. When you push the flusher dealy, it makes the little flappy-whatzit raise up, which allows water to kersploosh into the bowl, sending your shameful anatomical gobbledygook back to the bowels of hell where it belongs. At the same time, the flushamajig doohickey refills the tank until the little floatamabobber reaches the top.
Except my tank wasn't refilling. Instead of water flowing into the tank, it was dripping very slowly out the side of the doohickey while making a noise not unlike a teakettle wanting badly to explode. This is not how toilets are supposed to behave.
Thankfully, I have an amateur plumber on permanent retainer named Dad. It took longer for me to explain how to use Facetime on his iPhone than it did for him to diagnose the problem. "Yeah, you need a new [I've already forgotten what the actual name of a flushamajig doohickey is.]"
Dad wanted to drive up and do it himself. But at some point, I need to learn basic life skills like doohickey maintenance and perhaps 51 will finally be the year I become an adult. Besides, I'd had a busy week and it looked like a bomb and/or 1-3 assorted cats had destroyed the house. I was handling this on my own.
And by "on my own," I meant watching 17 videos on Youtube and calling all my friends. It actually didn't seem too tough. I watched a video with a helpful guy telling me all I needed was a trusty bucket, a sponge, and a pair of pliers. I just had to go buy a replacement doohicky, a trusty bucket, a sponge, and a pair of pliers.
I walked into Menard's trying to remember everything I needed. I wasn't expecting to be ambushed by a helpful associate mere steps into the store. "Can I help you find anything today?" she said today in a cheery voice. Luckily, it turned out she was fluent in Idiot.
"Umm," I said sheepishly, "I need a flushamajig doohickey."
"Aisle 10," she replied without missing a beat. "Come on, I'll show you."
With her recommendations, I soon had everything I needed, along with four bottles of root beer, a container of pretzels roughly the size of a small Volkswagen, and a bottle of something called "Urine Destroyer" because when you own 1-3 assorted cats, there's always urine to destroy.
It may have taken a re-watch of that video, the help of a friend, and a handful of what can only be described as stress pretzels, but I'm proud to say I have a brand new functioning flushamajig, installed and ready just in time for a relaxing evening of watching celebrities beat each other up on national TV.
In the long run, I think my toilet was more entertaining.
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