Plumber's Crack

I've always been proud of my home improvement projects, like the self ventilating door that I installed on my tenant's apartment. Instead of thanking me, my tenant Dennis suggested that the door didn't fit, that it had a huge gap at the bottom that lizards were using to get in and out of his kitchen. Anyway, as a landlord and property owner I have found that it is imperative that I save money on projects and try to do them myself. The only problem is, I am unqualified to do such work. A minor problem in my mind, but it does come back to bite me once in a while. Yesterday I had the handyman over to fix a couple of plumbing problems. The first was a toilet in our bedroom bath that was leaking around the base. The second problem was a leaking drain pipe under my tenant's sink. In the first situation the conversation went something like this.
    "Here's your problem." Mr. Handyman said with an air of expertise. "The flange is broken. Whoever put this toilet in failed to fix the flange. Every time somebody sits on this thing it rocks, allowing the flushed sewage to seep out."
I nodded my head in agreement.

   The second situation wasn't much different.
     "Where's the cardboard washer?" Mr. Handyman asked of no one in particular.
    "Excuse me, cardboard washer?" I replied.
    "Yes, there should be a cardboard washer between the rubber washer on the sink drain, and the part that tightens it up. It's not here. Whoever put this thing together didn't know what he was doing."
    "Oh, really? Yes, that plumber didn't seem very good. I've never had him do work for me again."
Obviously I wasn't going to tell him the truth. I put that toilet in, and I put that sink drain together. I remember the cardboard washer. I threw it away, I figured it was just for shipping. One thing is for sure, I won't be using that horrible plumber that did everything wrong again. Well maybe not, unless I'm feeling a little handy, and cheap.