Dave, were you at my house for the past two weeks? Hubby decided to 'fix' two - two - two sinks at once. His reasoning? ONE TRIP TO THE HARDWARE STORE WILL TAKE CARE OF EVERYTHING. HA, say I. HA HA HA.

We've now had no water (luckily, McDonald's is nearby and they have clean bathrooms WITH WATER), cold water only, no sinks for 24 hours, a sink taken out (before finding out whether a replacement was available - it wasn't) and put back in, many cuss words (a veritable blue cloud hangs over our house; six dogs hid in my office with me), various stenches from various GOOPS that were supposed to fix the problem(s) . . . well, you get the picture.

AND THIS COMIC PUTS IT ALL SUCCINCTLY . . . (altho *I* was the one who forgot her wallet at the garden store yesterday, so it's actually a twofer at our house).

(Did I mention that in the middle of all this, hubby had to leave town for several days?)

Oh jeez... my dad tried to "fix" our sinks and we were wthout hot water in the bathroom sink for 1 year( he was working 20 hours shift at the fastfood place 'cause he was laid off). Then it broke completely so we had to use the kitchen sink for a few days before he could buy the new sink and fix it.. aaand he made, like, 5 trips to the hardware store to find the right putty.( this was a few years ago).

Yerk

yup I think we've all been there with the DIY 'expert' starting with enthusiasm and then never managing to quite finish the job started...or in the worst case scenario actually devaluing the price of a house due to badly done and dangerous repairs...perhaps those six dogs might have done a better job!

Plumbing is even like that some days for the Plumbers.

You never really know how long it'll take (because you fix one leak and now that it's holding two more spring up...) unless they rip the whole thing out and start fresh with a brand new faucet in the box - which is what the plumbers do when they can't get the repair parts, and you get to pay for it.

Says the Electrician who is currently fighting with his own kitchen sink, with a pinched odd sized O-ring for the pull-out spout hose that I can NOT find.

It's not in any of a dozen different stores, it's not in three different "Pro Kit" O-Ring Assortment boxes...

I could mail order a package of fifty for under ten bucks, and have them here tomorrow - if I knew for sure what size it is. I think it's Metric, but...

I don't understand how so many husbands seem totally inadequate when it comes to household repairs. Maybe it's exaggeration by wives? Household electricity and plumbing, not to mention carpentry, are all relatively simple, although you should always "read up" your repair to make sure you haven't forgotten anything. Time Life books had a whole series of household repair books, and if you go back through the Popular Mechanics and Popular Science issues on computer, you can find out how to do about anything from fixing a dripping faucet to renovating the whole kitchen to building your own personal ultralight airplane from a kit.