"RoseGarden" - - - - - - - from - nscave

This has been a busy week, trying to get things in shape before our annual trip south.

Fallen Leaves

The routine is the same every fall. Wait for the leaves to fall, and with the last extremely heavy rain storm we had along with high wind, they certainly did. With a little help from Chicky and Lit’l Red towing a sweeper, they were cleaned up and bagged in short order.

Mower to Blower

The next day was partially used up taking the mower off Lit’l Red and putting the snow blower on. That can be a major operation. Wheel weights, counter weights on the rear, drive mechanism underneath, blower bracket on the front and finally attaching the blower itself.

After installing some things upside down, removing and installing the right way, plus wondering why a certain part won’t fit, then realizing it was for something else, all went smoothly. I’m not sure if having one part left over is a good thing.

Lit’l Red is ready for snow.

Toilet Seat

This is a different sort of fall routine.  Has nothing to do with the seasons. First the journey to the store to get a new replacement seat. There’s more choices than cars in a used car lot. There were thin ones, thick ones, padded with palm trees, solid wood, and more. I proudly left the store with a plain old toilet seat.

Directions say you need a screw driver and an adjustable wrench.

Let the procedure begin. It’s easy right? Just two screws holding the old seat on, what could go wrong?  Everything! The attachment bolts on the new one are plastic. On the old one they are metal, and rusted in place permanently. With a wrench on the bottom and the trusty large screw driver topside, it takes less than ten seconds to strip the slots off them.

What next? No room for a hacksaw. Drilling them out would work – if you have a rubber power drill that will bend around the tank.  Time for some low level four letter words.

As I sit on the floor contemplating what to do next, certain things come to mind. “Pee in the toilet bowl, not around it,” was often heard when the family was growing up. A TV show came to mind where it was said, always close the lid before flushing. If you choose not to, the mist goes over the whole bathroom, including your tooth brush.

Upgrade the low level words to high level words. Finally the ‘idea’ bulb came on. A tool that you only use a half dozen times in a life time, but when you need it nothing else will do the job. The Dremel tool, a rotary grinder with an endless list of attachments. Two discs later and the tops where cut off the bolts and the old seat was garbage bound.

The new one with plastic bolts went on in less than a minute.

Google Knows

The next day after things had calmed down a bit, I decided to check with Google just to see what would come up. I am always saying Google knows everything.

If you ask “change toilet seat” – look at all the answers you get. Some were practical, some not. One of the suggestions at the bottom said, “Did you mean toilet seat content.” No I didn’t, but it certainly was worth the click.

Glossary:  Lit’l Red = lawn tractor. (Lit’l Red, Big Blue and I all live at Pickle Palace.)

This work by NSCAVE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License