She will inform me that Rule 3.1(b) of the Realtor's Guide to Effective Home Photography prohibits taking shots of toilets with open lids. And she may have an Emily Post point.
But this essay would not have a point unless the lid was open. And you can see why.
That white oblong piece that looks as if I just tore off the arm of my dentist's chair is not supposed to be a separate piece. It is the rump of the left side of the toilet seat in my bathroom.
When I moved into the house with no name, one of the first things I noticed was the toilets. They looked like bathroom sculptures. Flowing curves contrasting with the angularity of the rest of the house.
I then discovered they were all form and no function. Well, they did have a function -- flushing away the waste of the house's inhabitants. But they were not functional when it came to maintenance.
The plastic seats that were on the toilets did not last more than a year after I bought the place. I don't know if they were never designed properly or if our heat and humidity simply sucked the adhesion out of the resins. I do know, though, that a cracked plastic toilet seat has no function other than as a clever tool of the Spanish inquisition.
When Darrel and I decided to replace all six toilet seats, we opted for wood -- in the belief that it would be more resilient. Buying them from Home Depot was the easy part of the project.
When we brought them home and started installing them, we discovered where up north there would have been a hole for a bolt to pass through on the back of the toilet rim, there was nothing but the sculptural wave of smooth ceramic. The only possibility was to reach behind the toilet and then feel around in its recesses to find the nuts holding on the seat.
I do not recall just how long it took us to change each seat. But it was frustrating. Neither of us have the flexible hands of youth.
I now have the opportunity to re-live that experience. Earlier this week I sat down on a complete seat and cracked it into two parts.
Even though the replacement seats had a label claiming they were made of wood, they are not the type of grained-wood toilet seats of my youth. It appears they are made of medium-density fiberboard -- a second cousin to Masonite. Even though, it has a good tensile strength, I managed to create a Great Schism in the seat.
My neighbor Mary has a wonderful handyman who goes by the name of Donny. He helped me remove some graffiti in front of my house. When I asked him if he would be willing to install a new seat when I bought it, he readily took on the job. Though he did ask me why I did not simply lift the seat and use the toilet sitting on the rim.
Anyone who has ever used public toilets in Mexico knows that is often the default position. Toilet seats in public restrooms either disappear or never had seats installed. I just accept that is one of the costs of using public facilities.
But I do not need to do that in my house. Until my seat is fixed, I can use the guest bathroom by the pool.
The repair will have to wait, though. Tomorrow morning I am heading to Zacatecas. I will tell you a bit more about that trip in the morning.
So, I had now best wrap up the paper work on this essay and start packing.
And, Mom, just think of the photograph as being another one of those disappointments I serve up now and then. I doubt I am trainable at my age.
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