You may not know this, but I’ve always considered myself a lousy plumber.
Despite that, I’m usually determined to do it myself whenever something that brings water into my home breaks or otherwise stops working properly.
So, with some trepidation, when my kitchen faucet began to drip, my deductive powers told me something was wrong, so I decided to fix the problem. Well, let’s be honest, I decided to fix it after my wife, Rita, fearing gazillion dollar water bills, insisted that I do so.
Figuring the inconvenience of replacing some little gizmo in the faucet was indefinitely better than sleeping on the porch or applying for a bank loan to pay the water bill, I turned off the water supply and took the cartridges out of the faucet handles. They had springs and seats to shut off the water, so I headed to the hardware store and got a box of springs and seats, which I promptly installed. I turned the water back on and closed the faucet valves. The cold water side was leak free. Not so, the hot water side, which could have raised the river level if I hadn’t shut it off again.
While I was shutting off the water supply, I noticed that bins on one of my workbenches were filled with water and there was a constant drip, apparently from the sink directly above the shutoffs. Sure enough, water was leaking from the stop and waste valve leading to the hot water side of the faucet. Fortunately, I found that the problem was minor — a nut on the valve had loosened — and I was able to tighten it to the point that there no longer was a leak. Now, the only loose nut was the do-it-yourself plumber.
OK, so now we’re making progress, right? Well, maybe not.
I tried again to get the spring and seat to shut off the water on the hot side. Then I tried again — and again — and once more for good measure. It didn’t work.
So, being the patient workman that I am, I said some uncomplimentary things about the faucet and then decided that since we’d had it for more than 10 years, it must be time for a new one. It had to be a defective faucet. It couldn’t have had anything to do with my skills, or lack thereof.
So, I went to a department store looking for a replacement, but it didn’t have a high rise faucet. Every other store was closed, so I decided that since I had the leaky cold water valve fixed, I would turn the water back on in that side so we could get drinking water or whatever and the next day Rita and I went shopping. We went to a plumbing supply store but while it had some nice faucets, we didn’t see the one we wanted. Finally, we did find one at another store and returned home.
I dug out my faucet wrench, pipe tape and plumber’s putty, only to discover that the wrench and tape were all that was needed. The faucet has a gasket on the bottom so the putty wasn’t necessary.
The old faucet came out with surprising ease and the new one went on with even more surprising ease.
This couldn’t be! Plumbing never goes that well for me, so I looked under, in and around the sink for leaks. There weren’t any. When we shut the water off, it stays off until we turn it on again. The sprayer sprays and the faucet faucets, or whatever faucets do and all is right with the world except that I’m in shock.
This simple hour or so job only took me about four hours, total, not counting shopping for the faucet and sopping up the water from my basement workbench. So now I figure maybe I’m not as bad at plumbing as I thought. Maybe I’m ready for a new career.
Anyone want to hire me?
No? I didn’t think so.

HAROLD PRENTISS is retired as managing editor of the Standard Journal.