The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

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One of the latest trends in trend-crazy America is to create a personal library in our domiciles. Not to amass a collection from our reading list (if we even have one) but to impress our visitors with volumes of literature and non-fiction. A well-stocked library should subtly send the message that its owners are erudite readers with broad and eclectic tastes. Sprinkle in a few Booker award novels among the classics, add some poetry anthologies, spice the biblioteca up with an encyclopedic array from the sciences, philosophies, a few avant-garde pieces and certainly oversized art books. Wow them with your extensive and expensive tastes!

But before you hurry out to your nearest Goodwill to find the raw materials for your Jeffersonian library, l should add that if you really want to impress your friends and neighbors, just piling dog-eared books on a make-shift shelf really isn’t going to do the trick. No, you need the equivalent of an oak paneled room, floor to ceiling shelving, preferably behind glass and if you have the ideal height, one of those rolling ladders necessary to access the hard-to-reach collection of rare books up at the top. First editions are a must and signed copies de rigueur in these unenlightened times of Google and Wickipedia. You are a person of discriminating tastes, my friend, not one of the yammering yokels who would ask why they would need a community library when they have a laptop.

Suffice it say it would be imperative to have a well-used armchair with adequate lighting beside it as well as a sturdy stand with one or more books ‘in progress’ even if you never plan to open another book to read in your entire life. The gesture is what counts. And hopefully your guests will never query you as to that current reading. If so, simply tell them you have only begun Chapter One and to make judgement at so early a stage would be foolish. You, needless to say, are not foolish. The library itself will attest to that. No, you sir are of finer mettle, a lord in the land of the Kindle, a giant among the unread. Relish your place above the unwashed masses. You’ve earned it!

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For any of you following these posts — and I sincerely apologize — you know I ignored the pleadings of my better half to hire a bathroom remodeling company to tear out our old shower and install a new one. I did this partly because the remodelers I called were busy until the following year or two but to be honest, because I’m mule-headed, one of those husbands who thinks he can handle a little Do-It-Yerself without bringing Catastrophe upon our house. Okay, full disclosure, I’ve had some close calls. Once, when building the house, I removed a couple of interior studs to make room for a Russian fireplace, what turned out to be very structural load bearing studs. Within a half minute the upper story was sagging into the first floor, 2×4’s were bending precipitously and yeah, Mr. DIY was nervous. Okay he was scared to death the entire house was going to collapse before he could shove some hastily cut studs and pound them into place with a maul. And yeah, I’ll admit at one point I considered the necessity of evacuating the house before I was killed by my own stupidity.

Lessons have been learned. Almost burning down my studio working on a 60 amp breaker that I grounded inadvertently … okay, another close call, smoldering walls and a call to the volunteer fire department, another instructional exercise. Although not as quickly learned when I wired a 240 volt heater incorrectly some years later and wire nuts were melted with scorch marks on the wall. But … I was younger then and far less wise than I am in my advancing old age, forget that maxim about old dogs and new tricks. We’re talking humans.

But I digress. Let’s fast forward to the new shower Karen didn’t want me installing myself. Took awhile but got it in okay. Until we noticed the leaks coming in from … somewhere. No big deal, just go back and caulk a little more. Day after day, the same thing, mystery leaks coming from god only knows where. A month went by and it became apparent to even me that this new shower might have to be torn out and find out if that leak was from the drain pipes, maybe I forgot to glue them together, about the only thing left as the culprit. Of course it also occurred to me, and I’m sure Karen too, that the second time through might be similar to the first time through. This, dear reader, is Plumbing 101. A little like quantum physics where the usual laws of the universe are skewed by the observance of the physicist….

Desperate troubles call for desperate measures. Drinking, for one. Which of course didn’t really offer help. In the end, out of solutions and out of time too, I did what I always do in these situations, just try anything at all no matter how insane. What have you got to lose? Maybe a flooded house, okay, I’ll give you that.

Two days ago I bought some stop-leak gunk used to seal up holes in radiators in cars and trucks. Last time I used that stuff I plugged my Rambler’s heater completely. So I know it works, just sometimes maybe a little too well. I rammed a towel down the shower drain to partially plug the water from draining too fast, then little by little poured the entire bottle of gunk down the hole. I know, I know, it was the act of a half crazed plumbing victim facing no other options than tearing out the shower and starting over, probably doing exactly the same thing and expecting better results.

Let me say in conclusion, the leak has stopped. Or leaks. Yes, Virginia, there are miracles. Even though they are essentially unheard of in the world of plumbing. And once again, by the skin of my teeth, I can say I averted what should have been a DIY catastrophe. But admittedly not without psychic scars. You out there looking for a Plumbing Influencer such as myself, trust me, do not try this in your own home!

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I’m in the middle of deconstructing two — count em — two of my homemade acoustic guitars. A couple of years ago I convinced myself that even without formal training, without specialized tools and even without the sense God gave a magpie, I could build a reasonably nice instrument. Sure, I knew there would be a learning curve — that’s why I built five, figuring the mistakes from the previous attempts would be corrected on the subsequent experiments. Which, for the most part, was far from my experience. It’s possible that the five banjos I built and which turned out pretty well, might have blinded me to the more difficult task of guitar luthiery.

There are some D-I-Y projects that do not require exotic specialization, they just need a few tools and plenty of courage. A fear of failure is a sure predicter of that fear coming true. In my case the urgent to do-it-myself was fueled by poverty. When a plumber charges $100 to make a house call down this end of the island to diagnose a washing machine problem, trust me, you’ll tear into it yourself. And more likely than not, you’ll find the problem, buy the part and fix the damn thing.

Same with the car, ditto the lawnmower, chalk up a win on the sink replacement, next thing you know you’re a self-sufficient handyman with the hubris of a professional. So okay, maybe the greenhouse I built was a little – or a lot – out of square. And sure, I did almost burn down my studio trying to work on an electric panel box wired directly to the street with no shut- off (obviously the previous owner was a D-I-Y’er) and even now I’ve got a newly installed shower that has a maddening mystery leak no caulk has yet to seal. A lesser man’s confidence might also start to leak — and admittedly mine has — but dammit, mistakes can be fixed! Or at least ignored.

But … that leak in the shower can’t be ignored. Believe me, I’ve tried.

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Maybe you’re familiar with the cautionary crawler at the bottom of your screen after some amazing feat of derring-do or plain insanity has culminated in a wildly successful outcome: DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME. This could be the mantra of the mizzus whenever I attempt some Do-It-Yer-Damn-Self project that probably should be left to professional stuntmen. Or certified electricians and plumbers. Okay, I admit to nearly burning down the glass shack a few years back, coulda happened to anybody, really, or at least those who were brave enough to stand on a rubber truck tire and ground a 60 amp breaker without being knocked unconscious clear across the lawn. Or the electrical issue up at the rental house next door, something to do with wiring hots to colds or neutrals to partisans, never did figure it out but next morning the wire nuts were melted and scorch marks indicated another lucky break for Mr. DIY.

So when she wanted a new shower installed, maybe it made sense to hire it done by skilled tradesmen. To her it made sense. To me, I’m the yahoo who put the original one in when I built the house. And, just to be fair –to me—let’s acknowledge that I built the house. Did you build yours? Did she build ours? I think you see where I’m going with this. Yes, I decided to do it my own damn self.

I’m not going to bore you with too many details of this project. Other than to say right off the get-go, the drain for our old shower would not match any drain pan in the plumbing supply house’s catalog. And since our drain is buried half a foot in concrete, moving the line would have required a jackhammer and even then…. Well, maybe you see my dilemma. It took a day to dismantle the old shower, only breaking a couple of supply lines. The new shower pan had to be raised six inches on a platform to connect to the old drain. Again, I don’t want to bore you with the esoterica of neo-angle glass door installations but suffice it to say the instructions were meant for professionals who needed no instructions, not me.

Half a week later…. a few glitches, a few reversals of fortune, many curses and more than necessary alterations in plan, the new shower was installed, the woodworking surrounding it had been replaced with new varnished cedar and once again, Mr. DIY emerged scratched but victorious. Until the leaks began to show up behind the new cedar baseboards. Something I ignored for awhile, thinking maybe splash from the open door or … ?

If you know plumbing like I know plumbing, you understand that the gods of these subterranean pipes are cruel and capricious. If you don’t know that, you have no bizness messing with their turf. They will mess you up, amigo. They will break you. They will make you wish you had never been born. I wish that I’d never been born. Do you have any idea what it feels like to imagine a leak underneath the pan, probably in the drain connections, that will require dismantling the Entire Shower, the adjoining woodwork and probably necessitate a new pan? Or worse? Of course you don’t because I can barely imagine it. The horror, the horror!

Karen wants me to hire a pro. As if there were plumbers or bathroom remodelers waiting for my call. The ones I did call were too booked to even consider coming out. They have appointments deep into next year. So you know what this means, don’t you? I’ll be sure to let you know how this turns out the second time through….

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