Do not try this at home...

In 27 years of life I have come to the conclusion that there are just some things that you should hire a professional to complete.  A few to mention would be re-roofing your house, plumbing, electrical work, plumbing, wall demolition, plumbing, carpet installation, plumbing, serious automotive repair, plumbing, window installation...  Oh wait, did I mention plumbing?  Anyway, in my new house (new to me at least, it was built in the 1950's) the main bathroom's shower needed some work.  And by some work I mean the shower handle fell off... you could put it back on, and believe me, we tried.  Short of super-gluing the handle on, it wouldn't stick.  If you ever want to have a scary experience, try being in the middle of washing your hair and hearing the crash of the handle falling off the shower... yes... *fun*. 

Anyway, with the purchase of a new handle for the shower, my Grandmother suggested that we have her handy-man come and install the handle.  I was fine with that... he does good work... not the fastest, but, hey, he gets the job done.  Anyway, I get a phone call from Mammaw yesterday afternoon around 4 that he was going to stop by and install the handle if I could stop by and let him in.  Well, when I came home from work with 5 minutes to change and start my training run, she was asleep in my living room waiting on him to get back from Lowe's (Trip #1).  I changed and left for my run.  About 45 minutes later, I returned, glistening profusely to find my garage door open and my Mammaw and her handyman in my garage with a propane torch to loosen the pipes.  This, might I add is the grandmother that had a mini-stroke a few weeks ago (you see my point about how hard it is to get her to stop).  Anyway, like I said, they were in my garage with a propane torch and wrenches so I run over, start helping and we finally get the middle piece that has to be replaced out.  By then it is 6:30.  I am supposed to be leaving for my Savvy Savers Investment Group meeting at 6:45... a few minor bumps in the road to that happening:  1 - The water is turned off (definitely need to shower before being seen in public) and 2 - My grandmother who just has been in the hospital was wanting to use the propane torch to help (yes, the potential for disaster just keeps increasing).  Thus, I decided I couldn't leave for my meeting with all this going on, so I sent my checks and stock reports on and stayed home.

After much deliberation, the handyman needed another piece to replace the part of the piece we just removed (Lowe's trip #2).  When he returned we started attempting to put the piece back in.  The entire time, my cat is attempting to poke his head through the hole in the wall to see what is going on in the garage - way to stay on top of things Beau!  At this point I am operating the propane torch and the handyman is wrangling with the pipes. Just an FYI, things that were made in the 1950's are smaller than things made now... Apparently none of us realized that until the piece was halfway in and we realized that we were going to have to cut pipes for it to fit.  By then it was almost 9 PM and we were exhausted, hot, and there was no way we were going to get this installed before midnight...  Thus, we decided to finish today and I went to my parent's house with the dog and cat in-tow to shower and spend the night.

If I have learned anything from this adventure is that while there are many things I am good at, one thing for sure that I am not good at is plumbing... I will keep you posted about my adventures in the wide world of plumbing tomorrow. 

The propane torch... I have nicknamed it Dante!

JCP