Yesterday I took out our old, broken-down kitchen faucet (I was the only one in the household who still had the “Fonzie touch”, and could work it), and replaced it with a shiny new one.

Well, I had SOME help.  I was going to do it all myself, and I had begun to… I turned off the water supply under the sink and disconnected the faucet from the shut-off valves.

Then, I got my head-and-shoulders under the sink and began to try to remove the nut that kept the old faucet stuck to the sink.

As you might know, it was awkward.  I had to twist my head just so to get it under the drain pipe where it ran out from the garbage disposal, performed a goose-neck, and then turned and ran into the wall.  There were two angles that I could use to attack the problem:  option one was crappy, and option two was a giant flying whirlpool of suck.

I went with option one, and began to remove the nut, one quarter turn at a time.  I didn’t have a real good angle, so I ended up jigging the sink, a lot.  Some old rusty crap rained down on me.

Since I am a former farm girl, I luckily had my mouth shut tightly, and I was just congratulating myself on not getting nasty old bits of rusty sink-crud in my teeth, when one of those bits of crud started scrambling down my neck.

I stifled a girly little shriek, twisted minutely, but vigorously, and gave a flip of my hand.  A spider flew off my neck, landed on the bottom of the cabinet, and scurried to the safety of a small, dark hole in the corner.  I went back to working, only to find that I needed two sets of hands for this next bit, because I needed someone to keep the assembly up-top from turning.

So I called Rocky in for moral support.  When he’s home, he’s always happy to take a short break to lend a hand like this, and though I probably could have found some way to do it myself, I wanted an extra pair of hands.

I know some feminists will ridicule me for this, but I never claimed to be a feminist…so there.

I’m just sayin’ – Spider!  ‘nuff said.

A little bit of team-work had the old faucet removed in no-time.  Luckily, I got under-the-sink-duty, because several small but potent drips of rusty sink-crud-laden water still needed to fall after all the jiggling and jolting to get the old faucet disconnected, and Rocky needed to go to a meeting.

Rocky was kind enough to say that he thought that girls with rusty sink-crud drips on their face looked sort of cute.  He was even convincing.

Then he had to leave for his meeting, and I figured all the old spiders were safely in hiding by then anyway.  I got the new faucet assembled and installed in no-time…except…it was leaking.  I tried to figure out where the leak was coming from, but it is difficult to turn the water off-and-on and look where the water is coming from at the same time, so I called our friend Eric.

He came right over and we found the problem.  One of the connectors had some debris in it from the factory.

Eric said “Do you have some tweezers?”

“I’m forty years old and a natural brunette…do I currently look like Groucho Marks?”

“Uh…no.”  Eric replied. 

“Then of COURSE I have a tweezers.”

The debris was promptly removed, the hose re-connected, and viola!  Perfectly working new faucet.

It was time for me to leave to get to go teach my Wednesday class, so I “thanked” Eric by giving him enough time to pick up his tools before hustling him out the front door, rounded up my boys (who are assisting me) and ran off to teach.

Today, we drill a hole to allow for the installation of my soap-dispenser.  Woo Hoo!  Soap dispenser!