Ghost in the Toilet...or Something

It wasn't enough to be sick off and on all last week...this weekend...again yesterday. Nope...that would have been too easy. Stay home...kick back...nap a bit. That's what you should do when you're sick. Not me. Yesterday, I was home...sick day. But let me go back a half day to Sunday afternoon. That's when it happened. My toilet randomly stopped flushing. Whatever...it happenes on occasion, right? Plunge, plunge, plung...flush...SWOOSH...splash...overflow. SHIT! Well...not really...that's me swearing. This was just water splashing on the floor. Empty water with bucket. Repeat. Maybe my plunger sucks...off to my least favorite place on the planet...Home Depot. Picked up a new plunger (cha ching, $5.99)...went home...plunge, plunge, plunge...SPLASH. ick. Back to Home Depot...picked up a Toilet Auger (which I never heard of before Sunday) and this crazy powerful CO2 cannister high pressure thing that I've learned since you shouldn't use (cha ching, $52.00). One of those two things cleared the drain...not without shooting water into the air...and lasted about 6 hours.

Fast forward to Monday morning. Still sick...sicker in fact than Sunday night. Guess what doesn't work again?! Good thing I'm staying home to "relax"...got to call a plumber. So I do...he's coming after lunch. Apparently in plumber language...after lunch is 5pm...WTF?! So they come...they "auger" the thing...it clears...it still only flushes 8 out of 10 times (cha ching, $95 for drain clearing). Somehow, I can't live with that. "You need a new toilet," I'm informed. Oh...here we go. Off to Home Depot AGAIN to buy a toilet...which this guy has generously offered to install on his own time...cheap (cha ching, $150). OK...if I don't do that...I've got no toilet for another night while I wait to setup another appointment with the guy who kept me waiting all day...without a toilet I remind you. SO...I agree...we shake on it...i go to Home Depot for a new toilet (cha ching, $180)...he comes back later and all is good for a grand total of $482.99. Heh...nothing you can do about it...gotta go, gotta go.