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Ginnie was on me to fix the handle on her toilet. (We each have our own bathrooms.) I picked up a new handle at the hardware store, and installed it on Ginnie’s toilet. It took me awhile to figure out that the handle has left hand threads. Well, duh! Her toilet seemed to be flushing fine with the new handle.
We were reading on a Friday night when Ginnie heard my toilet gurgling. She went in, jiggled the handle and sat back down. Then she heard something in her bathroom, and went to investigate.
I heard her scream. Thinking there was an intruder in the house, I scrambled to her rescue! My foot hit a puddle of water and, wham, I was on my back in two inches of water. I couldn’t move. My left knee was bent at an angle it shouldn’t be, like a half-opened jackknife.
Ginnie sloshed in, and gasped at the sight of me. I told her to call 911.
Two petite female paramedics arrived and checked me out lying in the water. They put a C-collar on me. They were going to have to lift me up onto a gurney. I asked them where the sheriff deputies or firemen were, and they said, "Oh, they’re busy." By golly, those two little gals wrestled me up outta the water, and into the ambulance, my knee killing me. They asked me what my pain level was on a scale of 1-10. I told them 9. They asked me if I wanted something for pain. I said, naw.
At the ER I was put through a series of CT scans and x-rays. Ginnie was freaking out because of (A) me, and (B) the standing water in our home. Her toilet had overflowed. The new handle was down and she lifted it up to make the water stop overflowing. I told her to call L.J. Roth Restoration, which she did. They told her they would be out first thing Saturday morning.
Fortunately, I had no broken bones or internal bleeding, and was allowed to go home with a swollen knee. We arrived home to see the Empty Nest mess.
It was a bad night. But L.J. Roth Restoration arrived bright and early Saturday morning. They had a huge riding vacuum that sucked the water up out of the carpet. Then they set up fans and a refrigerator-size dehumidifier. Stormy, our cat, hid under blankets.
But what about the overflowing toilet? A plumber was called. He ran a snake (he called it Jake the Snake) through the sewer pipe to the septic tank, and found nothing. He advised that we call a septic tank pumper to pump out the septic tank. I did and the septic tank pumper would be out first thing Monday morning. This was Saturday.
We spent an awful weekend with no toilets. When we ran the shower, it backed up through the shower drain and the floor drain in the garage. Yuck. We went to convenience stores and church to use the toilets. But we survived the weekend.
The handy-dandy septic pumper, Pepé Le Pew, arrived Monday morning. The first thing he found was a blockage in the sewer pipe going into the septic tank. Problem solved. We were back in service with workable toilets and showers, but a lot of clean up and put’n-stuff-back--of which I was no help with my bum knee.
An insurance adjuster arrived Tuesday morning, took one look at me and said, "Most accidents happen in the home, Curtis, and most of them are falls." I didn’t appreciate hearing what I already knew first hand.
I’m still pretty gimpy from not only my knee (I have an appointment with an orthopedist), but also sore ribs and shoulder. I know one thing for sure, the next time Ginnie asks me to replace a handle, I will scramble for the plumber!
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Have a good story? Call or text Curt Swarm in Mt. Pleasant at 319-217-0526 or email him at curtswarm@yahoo.com. Curt is available for public speaking.