[AN AMERICAN IN AVCILAR] Denise and the toilet

While in many ways she was an easy guest she was also distracting. I am, I guess, a man of routine and she broke the routine. It is not that I have all that many things to do, but her distractions skewed those few things out of order so I found myself spending a lot of time sitting and staring into space or sitting and listening to her talk.

Then, two days into her stay, somehow or another, she managed to drop the thing that makes the toilet flush into the toilet and then she somehow flushed the toilet, sending the flusher down the drain and into the sewery bowels of Avcılar.

OK. Things happen.

I managed to get the toilet to work by taking the lid off and working the mechanism manually. Wasn't perfect, but it worked.

Then, while I was working on the computer, she interrupted to say she needed to go to the pharmacy to get some eye drops for her cat. “Eye drops for your cat?” I asked. “OK.”

She was gone about three hours. No problem.

She suddenly made a grand entrance into the flat announcing that she had solved all my problems.

She had gone to a plumbing supply store and bought the mechanisms that go inside the toilet to make it work.

“I am very handy,” she declared. “My grandfather was a plumber.”

And she was handy.

At taking things apart. Toilet apparatus was soon strewn across the bathroom floor while towels sopped up radiating pools of water.

But she could not get the toilet back together. Rather, it began to leak like an Ottoman fountain. The problem had gone from bad to worse.

So I got drafted into the job. However, unlike, I am sure, her grandfather might have demonstrated for her, she had mixed together the old stuff and the new stuff and, despite much effort and ingenious mixing and matching of parts, we could not get the appropriate parts reassembled nor could we get the toilet to work.

We sat in the reception area feeling dejected at our repair skills and pondering our next move. “So -- what do we want to eat?” Denise asks. I reply, “Well, I have some cheese and pasterma and summer sausage.”

“I don't like that,” she says. She continues, “I would take you out but I have no Turkish lira --all I have on me is American money.”

“Even if we had money,” I reply, “I do not want to go out. I have things to do.” I rummaged and found some leftover beef stew in the refrigerator. “Would stew and rice be OK?” I inquired.

“But I want salad,” she purred. “OK,” I concur, “I will call the grocery and have them deliver.”

“But I like to pick out my vegetables. I am sort of picky about my vegetables. And I don't have any Turkish money,” she reminds me.

So I give her cash and send her off, while muttering to myself, “We shall see if she returns and if she lives through the night.”

A couple of hours later she returns, without vegetables. Her trip for the special veggies -- she came back with a loaf of bread and some chocolate.

But on the vegetable excursion, Denise had decided to give her plumbing skills a new try so had gone to a second plumbing supply store and explained the problem. I am sure the managers of hardware stores can see them coming a mile off -- another fix-it-yourselfer with deep pockets, long imagination and limited competence.

Denise had conversed with the store manager and not only explained our plumbing problem to him but also discoursed on the impact of improperly working plumbing fixtures and their deleterious effects on the environment and the waste of scarce water. I can see the manager now, nodding sagely. So Denise returned to the flat proudly carrying not only her chocolate and loaf of bread, but also an ecologically wise toilet mechanism. Not only was the mechanism very up-to-date but it also conserved water.

We struggled for an hour or so and managed to get the environmentally appropriate mechanism installed. The fancy ecologically wise thingamajig did not fit my toilet and jutted above the top of the tank. The tank lid would not fit but the appliance did work halfway well--and think of all the saved water!

Then the next day the new thingamajig broke. Progress is a two-bladed knife. How do I keep getting nicked?

So the toilet continued as a work in progress and we were back a square or two. Meanwhile, surely coincidentally, the hot water tube to the bathroom sink sprang a great big leak so I had to turn off the hot water until I could get it fixed. Not only was the toilet in a precarious situation but we were now reduced to shaving with cold water.

I made two trips to the plumbing supply store to find the hose that conducts water from the wall outlet to the sink and each time I bought the wrong thing. It was hard to pantomime what I needed -- speaking Turkish would have been handy for me, but probably less exciting than me acting out a tube stretching from the wall to the washbasin. One cannot accuse Turks of lacking a sense of the ridiculous and the local American gives them plenty of opportunity for humor. On the third trip, I had the foresight to take with me the old hose and the hardware store manager easily found me the appropriate replacement. Refraining from calling on Denise's inherited plumbing expertise, I installed the hose myself and one of our problems was solved.

But, the toilet.

A necessary fixture, I dare say. We finally tried calling a plumber -- I had suggested that when the problem arose, but Denise assured me that with her and her grandfather a plumber was superfluous. When we got the plumber on line, he said, “Tomorrow.” So, I continued to hold my functions until, inşallah, the plumber could come.

After waiting for the plumber -- for hours and many a crossed leg -- I decided to see if the doorkeeper [kapıcı] were handier than Denise or me and maybe even as handy as Denise's grandfather in solving plumbing problems.

Doğan is a man who survives by making do. He supports himself, his wife and four children by watching our apartment building, running errands and solving problems for the tenants. He quickly responded to our call and came up to the flat. Voila! He made a quick trip to the hardware store, where he spent less than TL 10 and, after returning to our flat, he had the job done in about 15 minutes.

I was relieved -- finally. The next day, Denise and her cat taxied to Atatürk Airport and caught a plane for Chicago. I returned to the calm of my routine, luxuriating in hot shaves and content in the knowledge that what needs flushing will be taken care of.

Life is a carousel and the unexpected adds spice, but why must the spice so often be sumac when one wants cinnamon?