Copulate My Existence

 Warning - Warning - Warning

Obscure variations of existing deathly swear words and phrases used in the following post.  May cause permanent injury to one's brain or drive one to drink if one understands said obscure variations.  Read at your own risk. 
     The Chants' Psychological Damage Department

So. There I was, working on breakfast at the usual Beans' Household Breakfast Time (somewheres around 4AM, that would be 0400 EST or 0000 GMT for you, juvat) and I smelled something not quite right and heard sounds not quite right coming from under the kitchen sink.  

With great loathing, knowing what sort of eldritch and lovecraftian things may exist under kitchen sinks, having experienced exploding oven cleaners (thanks, Mom,) raccoon attacks (thanks, hippy neighbors,) random roach explosions (thanks, crappy roommates,) rotting piles of coffee remains and cigarettes (thanks, in-laws who 'came for two weeks' and never left until the main AC died during a heatwave - real story, really, I did not win in the In-Law lottery) and other wonderful experiences, I, with great dread, opened... the under-sink cabinet doors.

And, to my utter disgust and horror, there, waiting for me, was a fetid swamp of grey water, complete with 'things' floating in it, accompanied by that peculiar smell of 'water trapped in cabinets under kitchen sinks.' (If you've ever had a leak under the kitchen sink, from either said kitchen sink or maybe the hose to the dishwasher or even rainwater intrusion, it is a particular smell, not like 'leak under bathroom sink' smell, that just says 'dangerous swampy fetid sour polluted waters lay ahead.) It's one of those smells that even when it clears up you can still smell it, it won't go away.  Agent Smith would put it as one of the top 10 smells that makes him hate the Matrix.

Like this, but darker, under the sink, in my apartment.

No trees though.

But still, the smell

That smell.

Bleh.

Okay, looking closely, pipes are all connected.  Must be an issue with the seal between the sink and the countertop.

Runs water.

Nope.  Leaking from the pipe.

Okay, time to do some serious work now.

One roll of paper towels later, and mopping the interior of the cabinet with heavy bleach water, I collect my potential tools:  pad for the knees (because I'm old, and fat, and down and hard surface hurts.  Come to think of it, it hurt when I was young, too,) flashlight (one of those that came in a pack of Black & Decker cordless tools.  Really nice in that the light portion tilts and the battery pack is flat so you can set the darned thing and point the light where you need it, hopefully not to be occluded by one's hands or head or both,) and a large bowl to place under the P-trap thingy (for to catch the water leaking, juvat.  OAFS would know, because he was smart and enlisted...)

Turn the water on, hmmm, water everywhere.  Shut off water.  Check lowest twisty pipe clamp thingy. Loose as all heck.  Tighten.  Turn water on, water everywhere, shut off water.  Check next highest twisty pipe clampy thingy.  Loose as all heck.  Tighten.  Get a clue. Check ALL remaining twisty pipe clampy thingies. Yep, all loose as heck.  Tighten all. 

(curse, grumble, curse curse)

Turn the water on, hmmm, water everywhere, still.  SHUT WATER OFF, CURSING LIKE A SAILOR (quietly, under breathe, as loud cursing makes Mrs. Andrew's head hurt.) Shake the whole P-trap thingy and why in the copulation is it so copulating loose?  Why the copulate is it not copulating attached to the copulating bottom of the copulating sink?  What The Copulation?  (all said very noisily in my head, not a sound squeaked out other than random grunts and groans.)

Mrs. Andrew asks from other room what is up and starts giving possible verbal help.  Which, me being urinated and surely, shut her off rather abruptly (but remembering last time when I dropped my male reproductive organs into a meat grinder known as peeved Mrs. Andrew's Ire) but politely telling her I am working on finding out what's wrong.

(curse, grumble, curse curse) 

Look closely at the whole pile of collective garbage.  Ah, a nut at the bottom of the sink (being seen by a nut outside of the cabinet...) Grab the sink nut and give it a twist, it refuses to twist.  Though a large metal washer and a plastic washer thingy and a short section of plastic pipe thingy come loose into my overly large and clumsy mitts.  Dagnabit.  Nut not moving. Try again. Nothing. Time to go to my tool stash...

Go digging into tool bucket and find... the perfect thing.  A large vice-grips.  Open up to maximum, unscrew that bolt thingy on the bottom of the vice-grips (do they call them vice grips because when clamped down totally on a male reproductive organ cluster, all thoughts of vice go away?) until the jaws of the vice grip is as wide as possible.

Grab the dagnabit nut and carefully (so as to not crush nut) unscrew nut.  Ah, got it, along with lots and lots of foul smeg and goop and other things. 

Take nut, metal washer, plastic washer thingy and short section of plastic pipe thingy to the bathroom and wash everything off, getting rid of all the foul smeg and goop and other things, to discover...

THAT THE COPULATING METAL WASHER IS THE TOP/BOTTOM OF THE COPULATING NUT THAT HOLDS THE MOTHER-COPULATING....  Yeah, the metal nut had doth rotted apart and separated into two different pieces.  AND THE COPULATING PLASTIC WASHER THINGY IS DONE BROKEDED IN TWO... (curse, swear, curse curse.)

That nut.  That Copulating nut.

See the top of the nut?

That's what looked like a washer, not part of the nut.

Cheap arsed pot-metal copulating pieces.

Okay.  Realizing that I now live in an apartment that has a maintenance staff, I immediately rush over to my phone and place a call to said maintenance staff, right?  Right? 

Said maintenance staff is about half as intelligent, efficient, and swift as the maintenance staff on base housing, so you all who have experienced base housing know that what I am saying is that relying on the maintenance staff to get this fixed in less than two weeks time is slim to none.  Still waiting for the final repairs on the  (checks list) bathroom wall behind the toilet and the stove hood, which were being 'worked on' since April 2017.  Seriously, my mad mechanics skillz, I don't have them, but I am as far above the lackwits and slackjawed mental and physic idiots, morons and defectives (usually, from my experience, from ingesting too much recreational alcohol or other substances, while working...) (And, no, I do not live in some high-falutin tony chic apartment complex.  I live in an okay, single people and old people and way too many druggies (like crammed 8-10 in an apartment, with nobody on the lease)  type apartment complex.  As long as they stay on their side of the doors, walls, ceiling and floor, along with their noises and stenches, I'm okay with it.  Place is actually quieter than the 'kinda upscale' suburb where from I and Mrs. Andrew left to come here.)

Plus, of course, the danged copulating nut is probably about 4 bucks at (b)Lowes. Of which I will be going to on Friday (7-23-21) (as the story is being narrated, it is 4AMish on Friday, 7-23-21, remember?) and the hardest part (cleaning up the water and finding the issue) was already done, so mental order for two nuts with plastic washer thingies to be picked up during shopping trip.

Said shopping trip occurred.  Simple.  Walk into (b)Lowes and find the appropriate part which match the now dead parts in the ziploc bag I'm carrying.  Everything looks good, well, as far as I can tell because the (b)Lowes part is inside a plastic bag that's thick enough to probably qualify as armor.  

And the lighting at big-box-hardware store is horrid.  Seriously, try looking at objects on the shelves set back under huge amounts palletized stuffs that are blocking the pitiful lighting.  Ah, yeah.  Do you get a sense of foreboding?  Does a bear poop in the woods?

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, on the way back from a fast attack run through the Cable company (because they copulated up my ability to pay on-line, so they get to see my fat ass every month) and (b)Lowes and Walmart and Sams and Publix (where shopping is a pleasure, really!) and get home to get just plastered by a huge rain storm that lasted longer than 2 hours (only a 20% chance of light showers according to the weatherguessers, TOP MEN, TOOOP MEN!!!) and get car unloaded (I puts the groceries into those black and yellow plastic bins because I have a van and it keeps the stuff from rolling around, and I just stack the bins in the van, then next to the door, then inside the apartment and then unload them) and the stuff put away and take a nice warm shower because I got drenched by semi-freezing rain and hail (remember, only 20% chance of light showers.  TOP MEN!!!) and go to re-nut the sink and...

I can fit 5 of these fully loaded in the back of my little van,
not including what I can put on the permanent dog couch

between the rear 'cargo' area, and they stack inside of each other

so I can fit Lurch the wonder-chair in for to carry Mrs. Andrew around.

COPULATE MY EXISTENCE!

Yep. 

You may have guessed it.

THE WRONG COPULATING PART!  Right diameter, right thread, not big enough hole for the little plastic pipe thingy.

At which time I... I... verbalized rather forthwithly and loudly and very Anglo-Saxonly and then had to apologize to Mrs. Andrew for the aforementioned verbalizing.

Now, you may think, well, loud Anglo-Saxonly verbalizing, that's not so bad.

One time I did that, after a failed project dealing with Homey Despot 2x4 pressure treated cardboard garbage lumber, I verbalized rather forthwithly, rather loudly and very Anglo-Saxonly so much that a neighbor 2 blocks away called the sheriff to find out why the nice man at XXXX address was murdering his wife.  Which I was not.  Wife was at work.  I was on the back porch smashing the piece of excrement wood thingy that was less stiff than wet pulp wood into shards and throwing said shards as far as possible, which was pretty far, let me tell you (as Mrs. Andrew made me go clean up my mess lest the forest creatures (copulate them all) be impaled or stabbed or inconvenienced by all the pieces of Homey Despot's finest garbage pulp cardboard imitating pulp wood. 

At which time, RAGE takes over and my head hurts and I have problems seeing.  Not seeing clearly, just actually seeing, as the head hurts so bad I can't see.

No.  I don't have a problem with Rage. Not one dang bit.  

Put everything away. Grumbled. Fixed dinner. Simmered.

Not going to store on Saturday - that's homemade pizza day.

Not going on Sunday, that's stay inside day for lots and lots of reasons.

Going on MONDAY.  Taking all parts with me.  Taking a damned head lamp so I can actually see in the murky depths of (b)Lowes.  And will buy 2 sets so as to fix both sides of the double sink and I will make sure by ripping one of the packages open (they get weird if you use a knife in the store, done it before, watched employees get wigged out) to make sure plastic pipe thingy fits correctly. 

Then I will come home.  Fix the copulating demon-spawn sink.  

And await the need to go to the hardware store one or two more times because that's how my life rolls.

CME