Finger Exercises

U had fun yesterday rebuilding a toilet. I had so much fun, in fact, that I may do it again today (well maybe not today, but tomorrow for sure.)
I don't consider myself to be handy. In fact, I'm pretty far from handy. Witness the fact that I made six trips to Home Depot yesterday. That's right, six trips. All I knew is that the toilet downstairs never stopped running and needed fixing. First I thought it was the float ball and arm -- I first tried adjusting, to no avail, then I decided to replace the ball and arm (trip one). No good -- didn't work. So it's obviously something with the valve component that fills the toilet. So off to Home Depot again (trip 2) for a new valve. I picked out he least expensive valve I could find, a FluidMaster 400A. Brought it home to discover there were no instructions in side. This should have been a tip-off that something was awry with this particular package. But I'm a modern guy, if there's some piece of information I need, I go to the Internet, and within a minute I have the instruction sheet downloaded. Of course this PDF is set up for 8.5x11 printing, so when I print it, the instructions are in about 5 pt type. I'm suddenly becoming very conscious of my eyesight slipping.
So I open the patient up, drain all the water, and begin the operation. The first thing is to disconnect the toilet flush handle. As soon as I grasp it, the end of the arm disintegrates in my hand. Off to Home Depot for a new handle (trip 3). Return with the handle. Continue the disassembly, then begin the installation. When I get the new valve installed, I see that the supply line in to the toilet won't work with the new valve, and in fact the directions very plainly state that you shouldn't use the old feed line fitting. So it's off to Home Depot for a new supply line (trip #4 -- as an aside, the Home Depot is about 1.5 miles from my home. One traffic light. I guess that's why this wasn't as onerous as it sounds.) I select a new supply line, return home to complete the task and find that the valve package I bought is missing more than the directions; it's missing a crucial washer. So I take the 3/4-installed valve out, box it up, return it to Home Depot (trip #5). Now I have a complete package (with fully legible directions) and I see exactly how this thing is supposed to come together. I complete the installation, and with some minor tweaking, have a toilet that no longer leaks. Of course I had to return the float ball and arm to Home Depot for a refund (trip #6).
There are any number of ways in which this could be interpreted as ridiculous behavior. Particularly in the fact that I got in my car, started and drove that short distance, then drove back. And ecological disaster! Yet there's not accounting for it in that way (not directly, not yet), so I get away with it. It's truly toxic, but I was having fun -- I was learning, challenging myself and my assumptions about myself. I was driven by that immediate sense in the present, with a goal of not wasting water (certainly a positive on the ecological scale -- I read that a leaky toilet wasted enough water to fill a swimming pool in one year -- I believe it.)
I want to regain some of the ecological consciousness I had in the 80s, then lost. Like a lot of people, I think the ecological paradigm needs some rethinking, but the time to rework a lot of our daily practices fast approaches.