Dear Diary

Dear Diary,

Okay, so first of all, none of this is my fault.

I just want that on record before I explain what happened to the bathroom.

It started because the toilet was running. You know that sound, that quiet, constant, hhhhhhhhh that makes you feel like the house is slowly exhaling its soul. Mom mentioned it like three weeks ago and Dad said, "I'll get to it" which in Dad Language means "this will still be broken when I die."

So, I decided to be helpful.

I watched a video on YouTube. It was eleven minutes long! (I feel this is important context.)

The guy in the video said all I needed was to "adjust the float ball," which sounds made up, but okay. I took the lid off the tank and peered inside and it looked like the inside of a robot's stomach, wet and mysterious and vaguely threatening.

I found something ball-shaped. I “adjusted” it.

The hhhhhhhh got louder!

I adjusted it the other way.

Water started coming out of a place water should not come out of.

This is when I called Becca, because Becca's dad is a plumber and I figured some of that must be genetic.

Becca said, and I quote, "Jesicca, I literally do not know what a float ball is."

I said, "Neither do I, fully, but I think I broke it."

She said, "Did you turn off the water first?"

I said, "The water has an off?"

There was a very long silence.

"Jessica."

"Becca."

"There's a valve behind the toilet."

"A valve? What the hell is that? A switch or something? Oh, I see it."

"Turn it."

I, of course, turned it the wrong way. Water pressure increased significantly. I made a sound I have never made before and hope never to make again.

By the time I turned the valve the right way, the bathroom floor had approximately one inch of water on it, my socks were soaked through, and the cat, who had been watching from the doorway with the energy of a documentarian, turned around and simply left.

Same, Frankie. Same.

Okay so then I thought: the water is off now, I can still fix this. I just need to replace the float ball entirely. How hard can it be?

(Diary, I want you to hold me accountable for asking that question. I should never ask that question.)

I put on dry socks and drove to Home Depot. I didn’t know what the hell I was looking for. I typed "toilet ball thing" into my phone and showed a man in an orange vest. He looked at me for a long moment.

"How old are you?" he said.

"Sixteen."

"Where are your parents?"

"This is not relevant," I said. "Can you help me or not?"

I came home and installed the wrong part with great confidence. I turned the water back on. The toilet made a new sound, a kind of GLUG GLUG WHIRR, that I am fairly certain no toilet has made in recorded history.

The float ball (wrong size, as it turns out) bobbed to the surface.

The running sound continued.

The floor, which I had mopped up, began to get wet again from a source I could not immediately identify.

I sat down on the bathroom floor in my wet socks.

Frankie came back, looked at me, and sat down too.

I think he felt sorry for me. Or he wanted to watch Act Two.

Mom came home at 5:45 pm.

She stood in the bathroom doorway for a very long time.

"Jessica," she said.

"I was trying to help," I said.

"Why is there a wrench in the sink?"

"That's a great question."

"Why does it smell like—"

"I don't know."

"Is that a different toilet part on the floor?"

"It's the old one. I kept it for reference."

She rubbed her face with both hands, which is her version of screaming.

Dad fixed it in eight minutes.

EIGHT MINUTES, DIARY.

He didn't even watch a YouTube video. He just looked at it, said hmmm, turned something a quarter inch, and the hhhhhhhh stopped.

Sixteen years of watching this man and I still don't understand him.

Anyway, the toilet works now, the floor is dry, and I have decided that my future career will not involve plumbing, valves, float balls, or any water-adjacent systems whatsoever.

On the bright side, Frankie slept on my feet tonight, so clearly he doesn't think any less of me.

Or he's just cold.

Probably he's just cold.

--Jessica (future lawyer, NOT plumber)

P.S. I'm keeping the wrong toilet part. It's a trophy. Of something.