So I've had a great many very interesting experiences in the last few months that I haven't recounted in my blog due to lack of free-time and/or poor motivation. Tonight I felt like writing up a quick blog, so I've decided to share one particularly harrowing event which occurred about a month ago.

It was a typical enough day. I was sitting in class (as teacher not student, unlike any current 'I was sitting in class' stories) and I decided that since I had so much to do it would be good to make a list. So I come up with a very long list of chores for myself...then they announce that I won't be getting an off period because they're short-handed

Naturally, I was seriously ticked off, especially since I'd just spent all that time coming up with the list! Well on my scheduled off period I show up in the office to find out where I'm supposed to go and lo and behold they don't need me after all! What good news I thought.

So I dash home, have a very fast lunch and get to work on all the things I need to do. lots of cleaning, put away some laundry, took out all my trash, changed Lucky's litter, refilled her food and water, general tidying up. Well at last it's time to go and I realize there's only one more thing to do: I need to clean my toilets and drop in those little bleach tablets.

Well the first toilet upstairs goes off without a hitch. So I come down, carrying my toilet brush and toilet tablet and clean the second one. So far so good. Then I decide it's time to drop the tablet in...that's where everything went awry. As I picked up the lid to the tank, while attempting to hang on to the toilet brush and bleach tablet, it slipped out of my hand! Unfortunately I went right into the toilet tank on it's end. In other words instead of horizontal, which would have made it rest on the top of the tank, it turned vertical and went into the tank, slamming into the bottom of it...and SHATTERING it completely.

So water gushed everywhere and my toilet was essentially destroyed BUT the problems don't end there. The actual water filling mechanism is undamaged (unfortunately), which means that it's still attempting to fill up a now destroyed tank. So I quickly grab the little floaty thing (I know EWWW right, but I'm already doused in toilet water anyway ) and hold it up to keep more water from further flooding the place. So of course I realize that I need to turn the water off to the toilet (I'm not a total idiot and I actually know my way around plumbing pretty well) and I even remembered that there's always a handy little valve that goes to toilets and sinks so that you can turn the water off and work on them. Unfortunately my little valve wasn't so handy. In fact my little handy was unable to turn the little valvey. It had evidently rusted into place after years of presumable disuse.

So I'm standing there in toilet water, contorting myself into all sorts of weird positions as I try to hold the floaty thing with one hand and yank on the valve with the other. I grabbed a towel, the reaching of which was no easy feat, and attempted to use that to get a better grip on the valve...no luck. I contorted myself still further so that I could hold onto the floaty with my left hand and use my right on the valve, hoping that I was stronger in my right hand...I'm evidently not.

At last I had the bright idea of rigging up a way to prop the toilet brush against the remains of the toilet and the floaty thing and hold it up that way, thus freeing me from my plumbing prison. I quickly ran upstairs and grabbed a wrench and made quick work of the accursed valve :mace:

Then I used what few dirty towels I had (just did laundry remember), plus a few previously clean ones, to clean up my soaked floor. Then I added 'laundry' back onto my to do list, cleaned myself up, called maintenance to replace the tank (I'm actually pretty sure I could have picked one up at Home Depot and done it myself, but I wasn't particularly inclined to undertake that little endeavor) and somehow STILL miraculously managed to arrive back to work before my break was over.

Oh yeah, and I honestly managed to avoid saying any bad words or getting angry/frustrated during that whole little battle. I think it must have been the adrenaline or something.