Dan Antion

One-Liner Wednesday – Bad Shopper

Ultimately, I went with a new chrome replacement trap.

You thought you were going to escape the plumbing story? Bwaah ha ha. Sorry. I’ll make this as painless as possible. Actually, I’ll spare you the whole story (removed 100 words) except for the part where I couldn’t decide between a fixed length PVC trap and a PVC trap with a flexible component on one end.

I carried my confusion to the counter, where the hardware store owner said what he always says:

“Take them both. Use what works and bring the other one back.”

Great! Except I never do that.

I never take stuff back to the hardware store.

I’ll put the other one on a shelf, in a drawer, in a closet, in a bin, behind something left over from a similar project or with a bunch of items I’ve had for so long the stores to which I could take them back have long gone out of business. I have a veritable “history of plumbing retailers” exhibit just waiting to be organized in my garage.

It’s not my fault.

It’s my father’s fault.

These are his genes at work. Oh sure, they’re working in concert with my mother’s it’s-easier-to-put-it-in-a-drawer-than-throw-it-away genes, but his are the ones that are saying “it will be nice to have one of these when the drain breaks in the middle of the night.”

Never mind the fact that we have more than one bathroom. Never mind the fact that drains don’t break in the middle of the night. Never mind the fact that if a drain broke in the middle of the night, my wife wouldn’t let me start making repairs until the stores opened in the morning. Never mind the fact that, by the time I actually need this thing in the middle of the night, Amazon will be able to fly it to my porch, or the eight-year-old down the street will be able to print one on his 3-D printer or Geordi will be able to replicate one and beam it down from the Enterprise while trapped in a time-warp.

Oooh, yes, it fits in the drawer!

The gallery has a couple of relevant photos as well as a few more bits of winter. As always, you can begin a slide show by clicking on any one picture.

This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s fun weekly series One-Liner Wednesday. It might also be part of Just-Jot-January. If you have a one-liner, I’d encourage you to join in on the fun. You can follow this link to participate and to see the one-liners from the other participants.

That’s what I was trying to connect to. It wasn’t meant to be easy.
All of this is in a box in the garage. I’ll be glad I kept this at some point.
“I’ll take them both”
59¢ From Wickes Lumber. Wickes closed in 2002
Hartford, seen over and reflected in a frozen Great River Park. The park is closed.
Great River Park flooded and then the flood water froze
The ice is breaking up and receding.
A bit of a feeding frenzy in the front yard.
The river flooded the park. The flooded park froze. Then it snowed.
Those are NOT my footprints. Someone walked down into the frozen/closed Great River Park.
An accident on the highway forced traffic onto this normally quiet street.
This little stream drains into the CT River in about 100 yards.
The flowing ice backs up behind the bridges all the way to Long Island Sound.

71 comments

  1. 😂Oooohhhhh….I see a future plumbing sculpture in there. Something for the front lawn, like an egret or a swan maybe….so hlad you got her done Dan. Plumbing is so awkward. I like the look of the metal pipe. Somehoe PVC is just so plastaaac(spoken in the voice of the kid from Indian in the Cupboard) It’s a standing joke around here. I love the creek photo best. Happy Hump Day!

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  4. This is a gene thing, but it’s a handy vs unhandy thing. If I have an extra anything, I take it back immediately because I don’t want to clean around it or dust it. On the other hand, when anything breaks I assume my husband can reach into some bucket or drawer in the garage and find something to fix it quickly. So, he does exactly what you described here. :-) Our local library at home has a 3D printer, and it is always humming along producing something when I check books out. Reminds me each time how old I am. I hope the issue of all the ice jams remain a photo opportunity and don’t result in serious flooding for home owners.

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    • I feel bad for my daughter, Judy. Her mom is the same way. When she was hanging the thermal liners in our family room, she was like: “oh, we need a…Wait, I think I have some of those…” and then produced something she bought from McCroy’s umpteem years ago.

      The ice dams down river were starting to cause flooding. The Coast Guard brought in an ice breaker and another cutter to help break them up.

      I have pulled stuff out of the bin on numerous occasions, so I think the bins and boxes will remain.

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  6. hahaha Chrome is shiny! I love the picture of the creek. Um, Dan, where’s Maddie? We always see at least one picture of Maddie. I know we say we like you, but, um, can Maddie come out to play? hee hee hee

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  10. I think hubby has that fifty-nine cent outlet somewhere in the basement. His “collection” would make your eyes water. But, they”ll be good use one day, right? He carried around old windows from Vermont Salvage for a decade. I had to stop complaining when they were perfect for a redo of the wing of a house. So now I have no voice when I want to pitch out his stuff. Great post, Dan!

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  11. Haha! No. I take the stuff back. I have a ‘hardware drawer’ in the house. It has nails, hooks, screws, the tiny screwdrivers, anchors and mollies. If I carried on my father’s genes, (or any of my parents’ for that matter) I’d have a divider or whatever, where they’d be sorted by size LOL. I’m a rebel, Dan! You, too, can break the cycle ;)

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  12. Oh, I just laughed at your plumbing story. I can relate to this. My husband has a bunch of stuff, nails, screws, and computers he is helping repair. He even has his Dad’s old took box. I’m not any better, I have numerous books that I have every intention of reading, but they sit on the shelf nicely organized though. CD’s that I have downloaded on iTunes, but they still sit on display in the family room, because I might need them some day. I inherited it from my mother and she lives with us, so her room is filled with stuff too. Fabulous excuse, huh? Thanks for again for sharing and bringing humor to my day.

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    • I just acquired one of my dad’s old toolboxes, after my mother passed away last year. It’s a connection, so I’ll be keeping that. The stuff that’s in it should go, but I’ll get around to that some day. There are some albums where I have the LP, a Cassette, a CD and the version in iTunes. At least I didn’t save any 8-tracks.

      Thanks for reading and for taking the time to comment.

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  13. Since you’re so good at making plumbing funny, I wish you had been here recently when my hubby was tackling a plumbing repair. NOT FUNNY! In this house, we tend to hang on to assorted parts from a repair job because “we might need it some day.” The problem is, when “some day” arrives, we don’t remember we have the part and buy a new one anyway. Lol.

    I had to peek at the link to quiall…..terrific pic of Maddie with her stuffed bone. My Murphy has the same one, but sadly hers isn’t quite that stuffed any more!

    Beautiful photo of the creek. Glad all that ice on the river didn’t get a chance to do damage. And I just love the photos that show off reflections. *Ginger*

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    • Thanks Ginger. I’m not sure how Maddie decides which toys to chew and which to preserve. She has some that she brings me in the morning when she wants me to sit with her. She knows I’m a sucker for certain ones, and if I don’t come on the first try, she steps it up a notch.

      Like your husband, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that I already had the part I was searching for at the hardware store. I think it’s how those guys stay in business.

      I love reflections, so I’m glad you like those pictures. That creek is hard to photograph, as there is nowhere to park, but I was on the road early one morning last week and there was no traffic to be seen.

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    • You’re a better man than I am, Frank. I can’t remember the last time I took something back to a hardware store. The gallery option i WordPress sometimes requires you to move things around, but I usually get happy with the results pretty quickly. I don’t have any experience with Google photos.

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  17. He-Man has a cupboard and a box for all the plumbing stuff he collects and collected trying fix things around here. It’s his least liked job out of all the “honey-do’s” there are.

    You made it funny. Thanks for the giggle this morning.

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    • Thanks Deborah. I think plumbing is my least favorite task, too. Well, next to writing a check to a plumber. A friend had a faucet installed and I had to shove my eyes back in the sockets when she told me what she paid. Still, I’m getting to the point where crawling/lying under a sink is more punishment than fun.

      I’m glad you enjoyed this.

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  18. I often hold on to extra parts, too, though my usual practice is to get the one thing that I think will work, and if it doesn’t, make a return trip.

    You don’t outright say it, but I’m assuming everything worked out with this job? I always prefer to work with drains over, say, feeder lines. Water-under-pressure jobs tend to be more of a pain.

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    • This was such a mess, Paul. We thought the faucet was leaking, so we bought a new one instead of trying to find parts for the 20-yr-old one. Then it turned out that the shutoff was leaking. Then we realized that the drain was also leaking.

      My normal response is to replace everything at the same time. I should have listened to my instincts on this job.

      But, yes. Water is running, no leaks, no runs, no (more) errors.

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  20. Although my husband has a ton of – plumbing and otherwise – parts in the garage “just in case,” he often buys two, three, or four of slightly different somethings for the project at hand. When the project is complete, we do takes things back… we call it anti-shopping.

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  21. 1. Yes, Dan , I thought I was going to escape the plumbing tale.; but , it wasn’t so bad after all . 2. I have a collection of old plumbing too — just in case . By the time I need it , though , the piece tends to be obsolete , eg. nice solid old iron fittings that won’t mix with the cheap newer stuff .
    By the way , plumbing may not break in the middle of the night , but it sure does on holidays like Christmas . You may have noticed that .

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    • You are absolutely right about plumbing and holidays. I think it’s highly well-planned obsolescence. I notice that plumbing is shifting to a variety of crimp-on connections. I’m not sure I like this. Perhaps there will come a day when I’ll be glad to have some of the things I have in inventory.

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  25. I know another reason to put it in a drawer. The light in the laundry room stopped working. Husband replaces the bulb but it still wouldn’t work. Until he could get over to Lowel’s to buy a switch and get instructions, I was forced to use a lantern to do the laundry. One evening late last week, Husband visited the next-door-neighbor. The man had done all the electrical for his brand new garage. He had an extra switch in a drawer. He came trotting over and repair our light problem.

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  27. You have caught the frozen stream with flowing water here. You have displayed beautiful night scenes of Great River Park. I loved the humor in saving the second (but different kind) part and placing it on a shelf or in a drawer. We sold many of these types of items at garage sale of our lake house. The strangest things brought “big” bucks and the more seemingly valuable items, barely anything. My Dad may have been like yours, since this is what we often found in places tools and parts didn’t even belong. 😀

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