Toilet Flange Passion

To continue on with the floor tile removal, I purchased some manly chisels and set back to work.

Yes, the new chisels were an improvement. Even so, I calculate that it would take another 12 hours or so of work to do the whole floor, so I've got a plan B (to be discussed later).

My main goal was to remove the tile from around the toilet flange and then assess how the flange intends to torment me. Success.

The toilet flange is what connects the toilet to the floor, and like most things in nature it has a following of devoted fans who have found common purpose on the Internet and who do not tire of arguing over the best ways to respect and care for it, not unlike the two churches that Cheryl and I discovered in a small town in Spain that compete over their respective Madonnas, each Madonna statue with it signature color dress (one was scarlet) and makeup.

Having little else to distract me, I am easily caught up into new avocations, and finding like-minded people on the web, I can be drawn along by the passion of others, even when the subject of this passion is a metal ring that sits under a toilet--a metal (or plastic, remember) ring and the different ways it can be configured because, make no mistake, this subject has caused more than one fist fight among drunken plumbers.

It is not necessary to go into the details here because I had a long discussion about toilet flanges with Willow who, despite her shortcomings as a project leader, is usually a good listener.

But in this case, I have been drawn into a conflict--some competing ways of solving the toilet flange issue--and then pulled along toward the mental anguish of having to commit my loyalty to a particular flange approach.

This morning the matter consumed my interest to the point that I felt compelled to discuss it with Cheryl, complete with a illustrated discussion (using my hands to represent floor, flange, toilet and fecal matter) and a demonstration of how, over time, some unfortunate material from the toilet might slip out and ooze down onto the kitchen ceiling if I have committed myself to the wrong school of toilet thought.

She also is a very good listener.