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Wednesday, April 30, 2003 I've been ignoring a problem with the toilet in this flat for weeks now. Weeks and weeks. Er, well, months, actually. When I returned to Madrid at the beginning of December, I discovered that during my absence water from the toilet tank had begun trickling down into the toilet bowl, meaning the tank had to refill itself periodically, using a fair amount of water over time. Rather than take the mechanism apart and try to figure out what was up, I just turned off the water line to the tank via a simple, conveniently-located tankside knob. When I needed to flush, I turned it back on. Turned it off again, post-flush. Brilliant. Problem solved, sort of. I mentioned it to my landlords, but as it was something easy to ignore, we decided to ignore it and see how that went. With time, I noticed that when I turned the water back on, the seepage from the tank down into the bowl had gotten worse -- rubber tank parts, maybe, not happy with drying out over and over and over. A month ago, when the male half of the landlords stopped by for an infusion of cash, I let him know the time had arrived to take care of the toilet. He took the mechanism apart, located what he thought was the problem -- a large rubber washer. Simple and inexpensive enough that we decided we could leave it to me to take care of. I'd find a plumbing supply store in the barrio, pick up a new part, replace the old one. Which I, of course, never got around to, having plenty of other stuff to distract myself with. Until I spoke with the LL a day or two back and he asked how it had gone. Which got me feeling silly enough that I finally got off my adorable butt and swung into action. Which meant, of course, that I had to locate a plumbing supply store. In the States, I'd pull out the yellow pages. Here, for some reason, the yellow pages don't seem to list things like plumbing supplies in sections like plumbing supplies. No one seems to know where they list things like that. My landlord didn't know. I sure didn't -- I'd already looked through the whole goddamn book. So I decided to ask a plumber and wandered over to a shop a block from here, an ancient, dark, narrow space tucked away between a tapas bar and a small clothes shop, its front room littered with mounds of tools and dust-covered plumbing parts. I rapped discretely at the door, a friendly, grizzled character emerged from a back room, came blinking into the light of the street. I showed him the part, asked if he knew where I could get a replacement. "Claro," he says ("Sure"), and gives me directions to a shop a couple of blocks away, behind the plaza. Which turned out to be a shop with shiny displays of kitchen/bathroom set-ups in front, and shelves of supplies in the back. Two customers were there ahead of me when I walked in the door, one just finishing up. He leaves, the clerk starts with the next customer, a 30ish Chinese fella, dressed in what would pass as office casual clothes in the States. He speaks decent, limited Spanish, the fingernail on his left-hand pinky has been allowed to grow long, and been manicured to a sharply rounded point. An actual plumber shows up just after me, a genial guy in his 30s -- short, burly, clearly coming straight from work 'cause everything about him is soiled, especially his hands, which hold what's left of a cigarette. A second plumbing type shows up after him. Then a short, stout, 60-something woman. We're all waiting because the Chinese guy is buying parts for a complicated job, and every time the counter person finds a requested item, the Chinese guy asks for something else. PVC tubing, brass pipes, mounting materials, joints, little teeny doodads of all kinds. On and on and on. The elderly woman asks plumber #1 about something she saw advertised on TV, something that gets installed in the incoming water pipes to a given household, which supposedly cleans out the pipes as water flows through it and through the system. The counter person, still hard at work with the Chinese guy suggests it may be a midget with a scrub brush. Plumber #1 has never heard of this product, has serious doubts whether it would have any positive effect, given the age of the pipes in most of the local buildings and the kind of build-up in the pipes. The woman figures she may try it anyway -- if it works, great; if it doesn't, what the hell. Conversation like this continues while the collection of supplies on the counter grows into a truly impressive heap of stuff, until the counter person finally has to write it all up, looking up prices as he does. More time passes. The elderly woman has found a seat from which she continues producing commentary of all kinds, getting responses from plumber #1 and the counter person. (Plumber #2 had given up and bolted.) At some point, the woman peers over in the direction of the counter, sees the process continues, exclaims loudly, "¡Ay! ¡Todavía no ha terminado ese hombre!" ("Jeez, that man still hasn't finished!") Plumber #1 cracks up, makes an answering comment I can't decipher through his laughter. Everyone's laughing now except the poor Chinese guy, who's trying to ignore it all and get his supplies paid for and out of there. I finally get the new washer -- a big one, maybe 2, 2-1/2 inches across -- come home, install it. Put the mechanism back together, let water run back into the tank. Water re-commences trickling from the tank into the bowl. I take the bugger apart, tinker with different things, go through a process of putting it back together, trying it out, taking it apart again, experimenting with different adjustments until I get the flow down to a minimal trickle. Couldn't get it to stop flowing altogether, though. Gave the landlord a call, let him know what happened. He'll check it out when he stops by for his next infusion of cash (which should be real soon now, this being April 30). Meanwhile, it is a spectacular spring day. Tomorrow is a holiday here (Mayday!), meaning many people will take Friday off as well, the kind of long weekend that's called 'un puente' here (a bridge). The feeling outside is relaxed -- this being, in effect, this week's Friday for many Madrileños. Which might account for the outrageous amount of car-horns I've heard braying around the barrio at different times during the afternoon. Happy, festive, not irritated or pissed-off. I've got class tonight. Then it's on to the weekend. Later. rws 12:10 PM [+]
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