Yeah, you read that right.  It’s a matter of great social and political import, my faucet is.  If it were the kitchen faucet and it was preventing me from doing dishes or something trivial like that, I’d be able to cope at least until I ran out of forks.  But this is my shower.  Given my aforementioned dislike of dishwashing, it is obvious that I’m not anal-retentively neat but I do likes me a shower.  Frequently.  My husband feels the same and that is why he took a shower yesterday after which the water would not turn off all the way.  I am the handy one in the house so I went in and took the thing apart.  I’ve replaced my share of washers in my time so I figured I’d pull an Amy Matthews and be greeted with flowers and a parade by an adoring husband. I got two pieces off of it and hit a roadblock.  There was that great post a while back about newfangled faucets and I now have one more gripe to add.  The parts are all funny and beyond my understanding.  Damn.  

So, I called the landlord to arrange for someone to come fix it.  He called back a few minutes later to say the guy would be here around 10 am today.  This is the same guy, mind you, who couldn’t find this

when he came to fix the leak coming from the neighbor’s place.  He walked right past it and checked under my kitchen sink.  But whatever.  I’m just a renter.  

This morning, 10 o’clock comes and goes.  I am a very patient person (and I hate to bug my landlord) so I gave the guy until 12.  I know how the life of a contractor goes and there’s nothing worse than someone calling up to ask where you are when you’re killing yourself to get the current job done.  Landlord calls back to apologize and says the guy will be here in an hour.  Fine.  
He got here about 45 minutes ago.  Bad news right away because it’s not the other guy but instead it’s the same guy who came to “fix” the microwave.  That was 3 weeks ago.  Last thing he mumbled was something about having a friend who could maybe *mumble, mumble, mumble*.  The thing hasn’t worked since the big blackout of 2006 anyway so I wasn’t expecting miracles.  There are 3 outlets here that are not properly grounded and the one for the microwave is one of them.  Tried to tell the guy that but I might as well have been telling him he needed to hem my pants.  He proceeded to fuck around with blowing circuits by trying to get the infernal machine to work (because my stating that it blows the circuit wherever I tried to use it must have been “silly girl talk”).  Ok, fine.  The man wants to be sure.  Can’t really fault him for that.  But I can fault him for DISCONNECTING THE WIRING OF THE OUTLET WITHOUT TURNING OFF THE POWER!!!  Oh no he di’int, you say.  Oh yes he did.  As I stood there frantically trying to remember where I might have a piece of wood with which I could break him free of the shock that was going to result in a twitching pile of flesh pudding on my kitchen floor.  Fortunately, this did not happen but the voice of my first aid instructor is still echoing in my head.  I’m not entirely sure what she is saying but she sounds awfully self-righteous.   Something about paying attention in class.  

Yeah, this story is supposed to be about my faucet.  But you see how I had to set up my level of expectations.  So, I open the door and I see an extra frumpy version of the very same repair dude.  Serious bedhead and about 5 jackets on.  I direct him to the shower.  He opens the shower door, takes a look, and then for some reason I do NOT understand, puts my bathroom rug on top of the toilet seat.  From there, it immediately falls off into the litter box and he has no clue.  I dramatically retrieved it with a disgusted flourish and was met with complete indifference. I showed him the 3 shut-off valves located in the bedroom closet.  I tried them all yesterday and no combination of off positioning had any bearing on the water running but he’s the pro, right?  He then hopped in the shower and took off the same parts I took off yesterday.   Then, he logically got out and turned off the water under the sink.  Not really sure how that follows since what it in fact accomplished was to stop the flow of water to the SINK.  The shower is still happily burbling away.    He pried off a few more bits and I heard things dropping.  I’m pretty sure something has now disappeared down the drain because the little cover doesn’t stay in place.  He came out of the bathroom with a few bits and mumbled something about going to check the parts. He is gone now.  I don’t expect him back.  I haven’t fit in the kitchen sink since I was three so this is going to be an interesting time.  I should maybe get some bathing pointers from the cat.