Lavatory Lowdown

Okay here’s an update on my little toilet problem for those of you sitting on the edge of your seats. I was actually feeling a little badly about my post on good old Mañana and his slow response time since he actually showed up later that same day to fix my toilet. I thought to myself, "Golly, gee, maybe that wasn't very nice of me to so publicly complain." Then on Thursday night, the toilet broke again and I realized Gonzalo didn't really fix it, he just gave it one of his Gonzo refurbishments.

Mind you, on Thursday night when the toilet broke it was once again at the end of an evening of despedida drinks. A small group of friends came over to have "el zarpe" after Kate's Despedida. El Zarpe is a term said in Costa Rica for the last drink, or two or three last drinks of the night. Right away my friend Christian offered to jump in and fix it, but I was determined to do it on my own. I'm a single, strong, independent woman living on my own. I need to be able to fix my own toilet. Well, after ten minutes of digging around in the back of the toilet trying to reconnect the chain I gave up. Feeling defeated, but wanting my toilet to work, I let my friend Shayne take over, who also was convinced he could get the job done. He worked on it for another ten minutes but also to no avail, which truthfully made me feel good because then I was less of a failure. Finally, Christian convinced us he was the man for the job. I knew he would be the one to fix it all along as he is one crafty Tico, but the Gringos of the group wanted to at least give it the old college try. Sure enough, Christian immediately figured out how Gonzalo had rigged the chain and after a few minutes success, though Christian warned that it would happen again unless new parts were assigned to the toilet.

Sure enough, on Friday when I got home after another long night out on the town, toilet broke again. (Hmm, do drunk people flush harder than sober people? Food for thought.)

Luckily on Saturday, I caught Mañana as he was attempting to plant yet another plant in our already overgrown garden and yanked him inside. This time he did the job right. So, really it just took ten days for me to have a proper working toilet.

Mañana, Mañana, Mañana.