"Did we install a fountain? A fancy fountain? I ask because there appears to be a fountain in our living room."

The "fountain" Zach was referring to was a beautiful cascade of water washing down the banister. Our ceiling dripped water like the beginnings of stalactites. Brown stains bloomed amidst the stucco. As the handier of the two of us, I began crying.

At some point in between episodes of "What Not to Wear" (shut up -- as a person whose personal style seems to wistfully sigh, "Oh Granimals for Adults: where art thou?" I need shows like "What Not to Wear." I now know that, as a gentleman with a fuller figure, I want to accentuate the smaller part of my waist when buying cute, fun tops. Unfortunately, the smallest part of my waist appears to be my neck. But I digress...), Something Terrible happened to the upstairs toilet.

"That better not be the upstairs toilet," Zach said. Zach lives in fear of toilet trouble of any kind. "What's that smell?"

"There is no smell. Or, it's wet-carpet-plus-cat smell."

"I just know I'm going to smell poo. What's that smell?"

"Maybe you could be more helpful somewhere else?"

The toilet issue was easily remedied, if only for the moment, by turning the water off that leads to the toilet tank. I mopped up most of the standing water in the bathroom with towels and t-shirts (Zach: "You realize we'll never be truly clean again, right?") and sloshed back down the stairs. The carpeted stairs. The carpeted stairs that now sloshed distressingly.

Our usual plumber is a lovely man from a South American country that I cannot find on a map, but I understand it's lovely. (It's also possible he is from Central America. It's even possible he's from Connecticut and I'm just super-duper ignorantly white.) Our usual plumber also likes to be paid in cash, something that both Zach and I were short on at that moment. "Besides," I said, "this has to be something we can fix on our own. It's one of the joys of home-owning, they tell me."

"I hope they are part of the we that's fixing your toilet, because I'm not going near it."

Only we -- any iteration of we -- didn't fix it. What had seemed onerous at first -- turn the valve on to let the tank fill up, letting the soggy towel underneath catch the slow drip that our leak had settled in to; turn the valve off when the tank was finished filling; complete whatever needed to be completed; flush -- slowly became a way of life. Even after our friend Jeff sent us step-by-step instructions on how to fix the problem on our own.

"What do you think 'torque' is? And can a hammer be used in all the places where it says 'wrench'? Because we own a hammer. I'm not sure if we own a wrench," Zach said, peering over my shoulder at the emailed directions.

"We totally own a wrench."

"Can you identify the wrench for me right now? In this pile of tools?"

"I have to go turn the toilet on. You'll have to excuse me."

And so it continued. I relieved myself like a refugee in a third-world country, only the smell was worse. We had gone from a one-cat-household to a no-cat-household to a two-cat-household during the Trials and Tribulations of the Toilet -- and the upstairs bathroom was working on overtime. Sometimes -- and I'm admitting this only in print -- I'd not follow, to the letter, the "yellow/mellow/brown/flush down" routine.

"Wait, what?" (Turns out, I admitted this out of print, too.) "What do you mean you--"

"If it's late, and the cats do something horrifyingly disgusting in the litterbox, I'll sometimes just let it, you know, wait. In the toilet."

"Until?"

"Until, you know...until."

"No, I actually don't know until. And you don't know until either. In fact, how little this sentence makes sense, that's how little sense your whole set-up up there makes to me. This is ridiculous. You're fixing your toilet." And there, on October 29, Zach became the Man of the House.

We had to direct our Thanksgiving guests to the downstairs bathroom in Zach's bedroom. "We're having some minor plumbing issues," I offered lamely. "You'd be more comfortable downstairs anyway. Please don't look in the bathtub." At the dinner table, Zach was thankful for the delicious food and one working toilet. I was thankful that Zach wasn't one to air our private grievances in public.

Finally, over this past weekend, I bought all the parts necessary to fix my bathroom. This was prompted by an increase in the severity of the drip. Before, when it was merely untenable, the toilet only leaked, and leaked lightly, when I turned the water on to fill the tank. It was now leaking almost all of the time, and I couldn't bear entering the new year in my current evacuatory condition.

I cleaned the litterbox in anticipation of getting to flush my toilet freely, and without planning ahead. The cats have aggressive bowels and the flatulence larger, older, cabbage-eating men. Rather than flushing immediately, though, I thought I would save it as the perfect capper to my job well done. Zach turned off the water from outside, I assembled every tool we own (Zach: "What's the spatula for?" Mike: "Don't worry about it."), and I set about disassembling the faulty parts.

Everything come off easily. I felt my testosterone levels increasing as I did the Lord's work with what I think was a crescent wrench and a pair of what turned out to be pliers. I imagined my life as a strong, solid, butchly gay man (rather than the wheezy, squishy, bookish gay man I actually am). "Hey, Mike, would you like to be the star of our rodeo?" I imagined being asked. "Mike, what do you think is wrong with the transmission on my some kind of car butch guys drive?" Or, "Can you open this jar?"

I began reassembling with the newer, better, non-leaky parts. This, too, seemed almost to be hitch-free. That is, right up until the end. This one hose piece wasn't necessarily fitting in the way I thought it should. It felt loose. But I convinced myself that it was supposed to be loose, since (a) What do I know from hoses? and (b) I was really done working with tools. I yelled down to Zach to turn the water back on. I anticipated how great it would feel to walk back down the stairs the hero of my own house. I contemplated quitting my cushy desk job to do Real Man work with things like duct tape and power saws.

I was hit in the face by a blast of water from the pipe that connects the house to my toilet.

I opened my mouth to yell at Zach and found myself swallowing for a long time. The water was coming out fast, and it was coming out cold. Like, super-fucking-serious-as-a-heart-attack cold. Assuming that I was Dutch, I put my finger in the pipe, thinking it would hold off the water until I could yell down to Zach. This, of course, didn't work (a helpful hint from me to you). I tried stemming the tide with a towel, which merely created a lovely spraying effect that alarmed the cats and stung my eyes. I was finally able to yell down to Zach to turn the water off, and I sat in a three-inch puddle of water, wondering what it possibly could be that I did wrong.

$225 (+ $7.00 for the materials I purchased) later, a nice plumber with a gut and what sounded like early on-set emphysema came to our home and fixed all I did wrong, which, as it turns out, wasn't much. "I'm not sure why this didn't work," he said, "unless it's because you didn't take this pressure ring off." Taking the pressure ring off hadn't been part of the instructions -- and I'll even admit that I completely just now made up the term "pressure ring" because I can't remember the exact name of the thing I screwed up. Still. "It's what I'm paid to do," the guy said. I happily flushed my toilet afterwards. I then went and read a book.