I think my only hope at this point is to get a facelift and then try to marry well.  I don’t know how else I’m going to be able to afford all of the unforeseen surprises in life.  And given my complete inability to move forward with the business, I’m now casting around for other ideas.

Yesterday afternoon I was happily preparing chicken wings in a honey mustard sauce when Nicky came upstairs and said ominously, “there’s something wrong with the basement toilet.”  My heart sank.  I went downstairs and could see the handle was broken, and water just kept rushing into the bowl. 

When I took the lid of the back to push down the rubber stopper, a steady jet of water sprayed me in the face.  I went upstairs and phoned the plumber.  Nicky came up and said it had stopped running, and I said, “Well for the love of God, don’t flush that toilet before the plumber arrives.”

At 3:30 AM I was awakened by a strange grinding noise.  As I sleep with ear plugs, it takes quite a bit of noise to sneak into my sleeping mind.  Not knowing anything about physics, I easily startle myself with wild notions.  I immediately imagined the basement toilet getting ready to blow sky-high.

I got up and went downstairs, and could discern the noise was coming from the water softener, and not the toilet.  I opened the top and felt sick as I realized I’ve forgotten to add salt for quite a while!  So it was completely empty of water or salt, attempting to work, hence the noise.

I dumped in a bunch of salt, and returned to bed, praying for the noise to stop.  After about an hour it did, and then I heard Nicky get up for his job at Canadian Tire.  He gets up at 4:30 as he starts work at 5:00 AM.

I was lying there thanking God the water softener had quieted, when suddenly I heard Nicky flush the basement toilet.  I could hear water running and running, and I laid there imagining the depth of the water on the floor.

However, it stopped after several minutes, just like the day before.  I mercifully fell asleep for an hour or so, and when I woke up all was quiet.  I went downstairs with trepidation, wondering what Hell would be waiting.  Nothing was wrong.  The bathroom floor was dry, and the toilet wasn’t running.  The water softener stood silent, smirking at me.

The plumber arrived at 1:00 and fixed the basement toilet, so all should be peaceful here tonight.  However, the bill for the toilet repair was almost $200, which I paid acting as though I was unruffled by a wage of about $180/hour.  Nice work if you can get it.

There goes $200 that I would’ve gladly spent on cute gardening things, but no.  And tomorrow my bees arrive, and that’ll be $135.  So don’t blame me if I have to revert to alternate means for paying for all this stuff.