Installing a tap – the girl way

The girl’s tap is leaking

– it squirts out of a little hole into rusty tin she keeps just for that purpose.

She decides it’s time to get a new tap.

In the hardware store: –

Girl:  Hello – I want to buy a tap.

Hardware man:  Take a look at these ma’m.

Girl:  Um……….. These don’t look right

Hardware man:  How so ma’m?

Girl:  Well my hot and cold tap are stuck together

Hardware man: ………………..Ah. So you need a mixer tap like this one

Girl:  (with relief) Yes!

Hardware man:  Why are you replacing your tap ma’m?

Girl:  My old one squirts at me.

Hardware man: Where about is the hole?

Girl:  From the swivel spout thingy

Hardware man:  You can just replace the..um…spout thingy

Girl:  No – I want a whole new shiny silver tap.  The old one has gone grey.

Hardware man:  Okay…..

So she buys a whole new shiny silver mixer tap and takes it home to stick on the wall.  She is blonde but does know that she needs spanners and wrenches which she arranges to have handy when she installs the tap.  It really can’t be that hard …can it?

With girl child in tow – she retires to the minute kitchen with her wrenches and manages to remove the mixer tap with ease.  There are however, two little pipes still sticking out of the wall that she sees still need to be removed because she has two shiny new ones to replace them.  The hardware included them in the tap box – how kind……

Girl:  How should I grip this squiggly pipe which is round with this wrench that has a square opening?

Girl child:  I don’t know – just try

Girl:  Argh!– it just keeps slipping – it won’t grip

Girl child:  Let me try mom……….. it just won’t grip…….I give up

Girl: We can’t give up – let’s phone Granddad.

Girl: Hi Dad – need some advice

Dad: Whats up hon?

Girl:  I can’t get the squiggly pipes out of the wall

Dad:……………..what squiggly pipes?

Girl:  Oh…sorry…I’m changing my tap

Dad: Ok – so which squiggly pipes?

Girl: The ones that come out of the wall

Dad:…………..is this a mixer tap?

Girl:  Ah – yes the hardware man says so.

Dad:  Have you got a wrench?

Girl:  Yes but it wont grip the round pipe – it’s a square wrench!

Dad:  The trick is to grip the little pipe over the bend – then it will turn.

Girl:  Ok…thanks Dad

Dad: No problem

An hour later

Girl:  Hi again Dad

Dad:  Hi Love – did you come right?

Girl:  No!   I can grip the little squiggly pipe but it wont turn..I think it’s rusted.

Dad:  Which way are you turning it?

Girl:………………………………………which way should I be turning it Dad?

Dad: Anticlockwise…..

Girl………………………..oh

Girl: (small voice) Thanks Dad

Girl and girl child grab the wrench and eventually manage to remove one squiggly pipe by both standing in the sink and pulling and pushing but the other one still won’t budge.  They call on the services of Mr Muscle – a friend from work’s husband who kindly pops past and after an hour of shouting at the squiggly pipe – gets it out.

abused and beaten squiggly pipe

Now they can begin with the installation …..the exciting part.  This is getting very, very necessary because dirty dishes have been piling up over the last two days of tap wrangling.

Girl gets all the shiny new silver bits together – assembles them with washers and some white sticky tape stuff and then sees that the NEW shiny squiggly pipes seem to be too short.  Argh!!!   There will be no water again tonight.  Darn!  She just wont accept this as things are getting decidedly grubby.  So she plots and schemes and eventually decides on this solution.

tandem taps

Don’t laugh….it works!

Edited: Just looking at these pictures makes my spine crawl – it really looks so dirty but I can assure you the place is scrubbed regularly.  This spot in the kitchen is so very old and tired and will be getting a full renovation as soon as I can.  Lots of the brown marks are rust and as you can see there was a lot of calcium in the water from the borehole they used. Our water is way better now.  I promise it will look better soon.