Playing with my cock
I had a bit of a problem yesterday.
I’m not sure what it was. Maybe it was a helical gear in my differential or something like that, but I am not a physician [nor is Doc but that’s another story], but anyway I wasn’t feeling the best, with backache, pains all over and a sore throat. I felt like shite warmed up and gone cold again.
I couldn’t tell Herself as she immediately starts nagging me to take this pill and that pill and all the fussing gets on my nerves. It’s a lot easier [and healthier] to suffer in silence.
So I decided to take things very easy for the day. I pampered myself and ignored all the demands for food and drink from the attic. If she couldn’t get out of bed for a pee, I was sure the mattress would soak it up.
Next thing, Daughter turns up out of the blue and frightens the shite out of me as she had let herself in by the front door and just appeared in the room. She asked if she could use our shower [apparently her bath is full of refuse bags – don’t ask!]. I told her she could but that it was acting a bit strange by occasionally switching to full power and full heat for no reason and without warning. I warned her and told her that if she did scald herself I would only charge half price.
She had her shower and appeared back in the kitchen. “That’s strange” says she, “It’s pissing down rain at the back of the house but there’s no sign of rain this side”. Fuck!! I knew immediately what was the cause of that little miracle.
So I climbed up onto the flat roof and checked the new water tank. Sure enough the fucking thing was overflowing and the water was cascading off the [blocked] gutters into the back yard. Bollox!
I lifted up the brand new hatch in the brand new box that covers the brand new tank. There I discovered the first problem. There was a lid on the tank which was bigger that the hatch so was almost impossible to remove. Add to that the fact that there was a copper overflow pipe that neatly curved into a hole in the lid effectively clamping it permanently in place. My handyman is certainly handy with his use of logic?
Pushing all my aches and pains to the back of my mind I wrestled with it. I eventually discovered that like a Chinese puzzle there was a way to remove the lid without breaking anything. I then discovered the real problem. The ball cock valve had simply jammed. I poked the ball and instantly the flow stopped. Now all I had to do was to work out how to replace the lid again. I eventually managed but not before putting my back out.
We are in the middle of a severe [critical?] water supply problem here in Ireland at the moment. Irish water is going ballistic trying to find ways and means to fine us for using any water at all, so I suppose there is no better time to waste several hundred gallons down the drains in my back yard?
It was around that time I remembered I hadn’t written anything here.
Fuck that.
Severe aches and pains took precedence.
I knew immediately what was the cause of that little miracle.
*dons leprechaun hat & best Oirish accent* “Begorrah but yer man missed a fine opportunity there, so yer did, to be sure to be sure”. Are you not in Ireland, the land where the Blessed Mother pops up more often than Pop-Tarts in a student’s kitchen, where the town drunk only has to see the face of Christ in whatever cow pat he woke up in, for the good villages to have a procession and a shrine to built? A quick call to whichever old biddy does the flowers in the church or the Father’s *cough* housekeeper saying the Mother of God had appeared to you and as sign, a sure sign, had decreed it would rain eternally but on one side of the house-which was to be converted into a chapel in her honour…you could have spent the hour before he and the first of the faithful arrived (it takes time on bared knees) bottling the water to flog to the gullible and working on your first volume of Prophecies.
I would dearly hate to hear your version of an Irish accent. Did you learn it from The Quiet Man?
They are praying for a miracle here in Ireland. They need someone to turn wine into water……
Has yer not so Andy man bent the arm on the cock thus giving the ball the option of jamming against said tank?
This was a favorite trick of unscruplous plumbers ‘fixing’ a worn out ball valve washer, charging for the fix but not actually replacing the washer.
Used to be a plumber in a large shipyard working on ‘the plant’ back in the day so came across, quite literally, all sorts.
Ah no. My fella is as honest as the day is long. The ball was almost submerged, and a quick thump sorted it.
Why is it that 99% of problems can be solved with a judiciously applied kick or thump?
Maybe the ball arm is bent where it joins the valve body, had quite a few brand new ones with this anomaly which made the rising ball stop rising and overflowed the tank. Should it do it again after k8 turns up unexpectedly the arm might need a hammer taking to it, off valve, to straighten it out. Or a bad casting leaving a rag which has the same effect.
Uisce Éireann haven’t talked you into installing a water meter then?
You must be joking! They turned up here over three years ago, dug up my driveway and installed a meter. They left it with a length of pipe sticking out of the ground and stuck into my brambles. Since then the meter has been accidentally cemented over [*cough*] but I left the pipe there as a memorial to a money grubbing gubmint.
I actually have a spare meter wot I “borrowed” if anyone wants one?