Part of Kepler’s bedtime routine includes the great joy of choosing three books, hiding them under the covers to trick mom, and then reading them together. He dearly loves all the Fisher Price Little People Lift-the-flap books. Let me assure you: We DO know what people do by now. We have read this book several hundred times, and yet it continues to be one of his favorites.

In my house in my ability to pay attention to things, the squeakiest wheel gets the grease. I had noticed the utility sink was being more of a “futility” sink because there kept being water on the floor. Floor NOT the right place. And that sink is mighty squeaky when I am actually in the basement, but fails to make the tiniest squawk when I am not down there.

Today I descended the stairs, minding my own business, as usual, just ready to do some laundry, as one does occasionally. SQUEAK SQUEAKSQUEAKSQUAWK! My feet squished on the very wet area rug. I wisely concluded the sink had not magically healed itself. Sigh.

I come from Pioneer Woman stock, and I live near a hardware store, and I have a car. Voila. Problem solved. Sort of. I squatted down to look under the sink, taking care to keep my knees off of the gross floor that had water on it. Snapped a pic with my 6+, measured the diameter of the pipe just in case, and drove off to Ace Hardware. I knew what I needed and trusted I would know it when I saw it.

We’ve all been in those hardware stores where ol’ Mr. Norris keeps a cluttered store, but has a complete inventory and knows where every single thing is. Remember those stores? Mr. Norris does not work at my store. A frightened looking woman greeted me at the door, “Can I help you find anything?” “Yes, I need some PVC pipe.” “Oh, that’s back here.” But once we got to the aisle, she more or less said I was on my own and she scampered back up to the front to “help” the next person.

On my third employee, I was told that this would probably work. Now, I’m no plumber, but dang, if you work in a hardware store, I think that you ought to have a rudimentary knowledge of how plumbing connections work. Because the connector end that has the flange on it is not going to work where you need just the pipe. And when the customer has TAKEN A PICTURE and shown you her set-up, that’s the kind of thing you might oughta take into consideration before suggesting that this should work.

One of the Things That People Do is to be a plumber. You can see Pink Penny here getting ready to fix the  bathtub. I identify with Pink Penny, because when you lift the flap, you see this:

I guess I watched my dad do enough plumbing when my brain could remember everything I saw instantaneously because I remembered how to take apart the pipe. However, this did not work. Not even close. Not even close.

Now, the pipe in question has been here for at least the past 17 years, and to my knowledge, PVC pipe does not shrink when it comes into contact with water, like those packing peanuts do. So, when a person recently told me the pipe was not long enough, I was like, “Yeah? Pretty sure pipes don’t shrink.”

Suddenly Captain Obvious came to life. If I just twist this a little bit that way, I think it will reach like it is supposed to. OH, CAPTAIN OBVIOUS, YOU HAVE SAVED THE DAY.

I carefully repackaged the useless plumbing parts sold to me by the anti-plumbing hardware store employees and stapled it all back together to trick the next customer that buys it only to return it because they have gotten SOLID advice from the employee.

I ran water into the sink to check for leaks and saw no water leaking out. However, Captain Obvious is probably not the most proficient plumber, so we’ll keep an eye out over the next few days and see if my fix actually worked.

In the meantime, would anyone like a nice, large, maroon area rug that is just a tiny bit squishy? As Dory said in Finding Nemo, I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy. Come on, Squishy Come on, little Squishy.