The story begins in July, when Amber was taking drivers’ ed at the high school, which is about a half a mile from the best TruValue hardware store in New Hampshire.
I rode my bike to the hardware store and bought three universal fit flappers, black, with silver chains. Although I would have stored them in the safe, I left them on top of the dryer for safe keeping.
Three days ago, I reslimed the TV remote. If your TV remote won’t turn the TV on, or let you control the vidiot box, you may need to reslime it. Arm yourself with two small to medium sized screwdrivers, one flat head, one Phillips, and new batteries, just in case. Find a comfortable spot and tear the remote apart. Try not to lose any pieces, but if it didn’t work when you started, it probably won’t work any worse if you fail fixing it, eh?
Once the remote is in pieces, take the button part, that rubbery piece that sits on the circuit board. Fold it gently in half, right side out, and rub the sides together. This reslimes the buttons. Refer http://www.wikihow.com/Repair-a-Remote-Control for a more technical description of the slime.
Put the remote back together and push buttons. It should work better. If it doesn’t - go buy a new one. Save any of the parts that look fun, be sure to dispose of any electronic components properly.
My resliming worked!
Next, I installed the three flappers in the three flushers and adjusted the floats. This involved a lot of flushing and wild cheers when the water level was right at the line. Hanna, the cat, helped.
At about three AM, the phantom flusher struck in the downstairs bathroom. I realized immediately what happened, the flapper was leaking. With a sigh, I rolled over and went to sleep. The phantom flusher attacked again around six AM, whereupon I removed all the new flappers and replaced them with the old flappers. The running water issue that had prompted this adventure was related to the floats, not the flappers.
At this time, all the toilets are working properly and so is the remote. Life is good.
Stay tuned for next week’s report on … dusting with dog toys.