There's one thing about my new place I've neglected to mention as of yet: my bathroom. While the rest of the place has taken time to get used to, the bathroom takes far less time to gain such familiarity. Upon my official move-in, I noticed that my toilet seemed to be fairly unstable. I learned this on day one, when I leaned forward, like you do, and discovered that the toilet was leaning along with me. To say the least, this was not exactly a welcome feeling, because I was kind of in the middle of something. And really, if there's anything you want in your home to be solidly grounded, I'd say that your toilet your Ace of Spades. Take my word for it. I realize I should have seen to it that I have it fixed immediately. Unfortunately, I was finishing a hectic move and working tirelessly to get set up so I could head back to Albuquerque again. Then the rest of summer passed, and school craziness arose.

Last week, I talked to my landlord about some of the issues I've been having with my humble abode: a refrigerator sans pan, a horrible shower head I wanted replaced, and, most pressing, a toilet that threatened impending doom whenever I used the thing.

Craziness remained for both me and my landlord, so it wasn't until yesterda that he was able to take a look at it. "It just needs to be screwed back in," he said of my toilet. Only that wasn't it, as we soon discovered. The screw didn't even reach the foundation, so he eventually had to do this:

That is one exquisite pile of rust. Or something, I don't know what that is. But it detached itself from the toilet, and evidently, this is bad. Which is why it had to be removed:

When finally my landlord finished working, he proclaimed that all was well, and then proceeded to try flushing the toilet. We watched as black chunks of worn plastic appeared in the water, and as the tank filled, the flow of water never actually stopped when it was meant to. We turned off the water, and he said he'd have to go back to the store for another new part, this time the one that lifts up and stops the incoming flow of water once the tank is full.

At this point, I should point out that in order to work on the toilet, my landlord had had to turn off the water. When he was finished, he went around the back of the house to turn it back on. At some point afterward, I decided to walk into the kitchen for a drink of water. As soon as I stepped foot on the tile, my bare foot slipped, I yelled ("aaarrggh!"), and I performed an acrobatic move that could very well have landed me a spot on the Olympic gymnastics team had it actually been intentional.

That shiny floor is not because I just mopped it. Rather, that is what a quarter of an inch of water across your entire kitchen floor looks like. Turns out that, as it was getting dark, my landlord mistakenly turned on the wrong water source. Instead of turning on the toilet/bathroom source, he accidentally turned on the hose for the refrigerator's ice maker (which doesn't work and therefore wasn't hooked up to the fridge). It took a wet vac and a good twenty minutes to get all the water off the floor.

It'd been several hours since we'd started, and as I hadn't thought to drain the main vein beforehand (not my fault; who could have known that a simple tightening of screws could lead to a four-hour fight to the death with your toilet), I was starting to reach a point where I was standing with one leg in front of the other a lot more than usual. My landlord noticed. "If you want to use the toilet while I'm gone, that shouldn't be a problem. Just turn off the water when you're done."

Every instinct told me not to, but finally, physiology won out, and I relented. I made sure to turn the water on, and then tried flushing. It worked! Sort of. The water left the tank and flowed into the bowl. Unfortunately, the rest of the process failed, and the water in the bowl suddenly doubled in quantity. It was worse than a clog, because I could tell that the water wasn't even TRYING to exit the bowl. It all just sat there taunting me, with its yellowish hue, about how embarrassing it would be to point out to my landlord that the toilet wasn't flushing.

In conclusion, everything is better now. Well, he toilet, the water, the kitchen floor, at least. I remain as inept as ever, and am just grateful to have a landlord who doesn't mind my incompetence when it comes to most things home maintenance.