we hates when we has to argue with plumbing...

My brother sagely says that no one in our family should mess with plumbing. Disaster always lurks nearby. Myriad trips to the hardware store are a given, and personal injury is likely.

Yet we are also cheap, and the notion of paying someone a lot of money to come install a $5 part is galling............... Not to mention having to schedule it, and wait around for them to come...............

Parsimony won out over a diffident respect for the plumbing goblins, as I knew what the problem was and what the solution ought to be.

The pale blue flapper that seals the tank between flushes seems to have shrunk with age. Or at least its little arms got shorter. I can't see how it can ever have worked; it barely covered the opening.

Naturally the first replacement flapper I got wasn't right. Its arms were long, but too far apart, and when I put it on anyway, bending its (very flexible) little arms to my will, it was distorted by the awkward clasp I required of it, and it leaked. Worse than the old one.

The hardware store took it back ("Who cares what goes into their toilet!"). (I love Ace Hardware!) I bought two more flappers, hoping one of them might fit. I would like to note that this is an area positively crying out for standardization...........

Luck was with me; one of the newest flappers seems to fit reasonably well.

Getting the old flapper off its chain was annoying. Why would *that* need to be hard???? (I know, I know, it's because they don't think anyone is ever taking it off the chain, so they just make it easy and cheap to put on. That's nice for them, but what about *my* needs?????)

Before you ask me why I transferred the old chain to the new flapper, which came with a new chain of its own, I will explain that the old chain has that little float. That little float allows a partial flush. When you don't need a full flush. You can always hold the lever down for a full flush. If you need to. And the rest of the time you are saving even more water (this is a 1.6 gallon tank).

Here we see the situation just prior to installing the new flapper. Note the carefully-engineered chopstick + string aparatus on top. It is holding up the little arm thingy, preventing any attempt to fill up the tank while I work. Note pliers and screwdrivers for prying apart the metal pinchy thing connecting a chain to a flapper. (Note to self. Buy new pliers. These suck. The handles are too close together when they are closed, meaning that you get less leverage than you would get if they were a bit farther apart.)

I am quietly happy to report that I installed the new flapper, now attached to the old chain. Without major incident. It worked, too, but you had to hold the lever all the way down for several seconds. Hmmm. I moved the hook out farther on the lever, and now all is serene.

We are uneasily hopeful that it remain so.

What *are* the proper offerings for propitiating plumbing goblins?