Jeannette and I are now in debt to our eye balls, but in exchange for the debt, we get to live in a condo/townhome thing. Moving in was a piece of cake, but here are the surprises which popped up in the few weeks here:
1. The first day, I was stuffing things under the kitchen sink, and the drain pipe popped off. Lesson learned; Don't bump pipes, and it's pretty easy to fix, once you learn which O ring goes where.
2. The toilet in the main bathroom was a little funny. You had to hold the handle down to get it to flush. So I popped open the lid, and the flapper was all white and spongy. Just as a note, it used to be rubber and red. Menards had a sale on toilet repair kits, so that was a piece of cake. Lesson learned; Don't put up with finicky toilets, it's easier to just fix them.
3. Again in the kitchen, the sprayer in the sink dribbled, rather then sprayed. So, I bought a replacement sprayer. Jeannette was off getting presents, so I had time to monkey with the sink. I crawl under there, and start to undo the nuts holding the faucet to the sink, and the bolt just falls off. I take off the other nut, and remove the faucet which had turned into a pile of rust in 25 years. So I run to Menards again to seek out a replacement faucet, and find a clearance set, with sprayer for $25. During the replacement process, I kept hooking up the hoses to the lines, and forgetting other parts which needed to be assembled. I took apart and reassembled the faucet about four times before getting it right. The good part, everything worked, and I didn't get soaked. Lesson learned; simple projects are rarely as simple as they seem.
4. Last night, I hear Jeannette shout up from the basement, "Bjorn, come here quick!" I thought one of the cats had changed the color of its fur by how loud she was. It had nothing to do with a cat, but a skunk. There was a baby skunk stuck in our window well. So, I took off the bit of wood fencing in place to keep critters out and I stuck a board to be used as a ramp to get out. I dropped cheese down there to entice the skunk, and put more cheese on the board, and left it alone. I checked on it until night, and it didn't move, but ate the cheese which hit the rocks on the bottom. So, I was left with a board with two slices of cheese on it and a skunk in a hole this morning. I tried calling animal control just across the tracks, and they were closed at 7 at night. I wasn't looking forward to trying to get a hold of them in the morning to make an appointment to get rid of the skunk. So, as we were getting ready this morning, I grabbed a length of networking cable, and a broom handle and made one of those fancy cinching pole things they use on those ASPCA shows. Well, it worked. The skunk looked miserable getting hauled out of the well, but when I let it go in the yard, it ran under the deck, and looked OK. It was walking alright. A few minutes later, and we saw it playing with a pine cone. So, we didn't have to bother animal control, and we weren't even late to work. Lesson learned; Reality TV shows can teach you something. That, and skunks are adorable.
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