This is just a little tale about how split second decisions can end up costing you 5 times more than you would have spent otherwise.
After such a tough week I offer up this little, but entirely true tale.
Like many people I have an iPod. Mine is a purple iPod Nano.
I got it to give me something to enjoy while doing tasks of cleaning the house, sorting through and de-stuffafying our house, etc. All things I find, on the whole, mind numbingly mundane. It was also bought because apparently the other members of the house object to audio speakers turned up to 11 so I can hear the radio on all three floors.
Along with the $135 iPod Nano I bought the $20 protective thick plastic clip. It would not only protect my iPod from all possible mayhem that house cleaning and de-stuffafying a house can bring, but it would also allow it to be clipped to my belt, waistband, or even a blouse.
I also bought JVC non clipping headphones because I hate earbuds and clipping headphones hurt my ears (I'm an eye glass wearer).
I loved it. I was/am free! I could listen to what I want (which is really varied and very eclectic from world music (Bhangra, Rai, etc,) , to classical, jazz, opera, rock, country, R&B, rap, crossovers, oldies, newies and everything in between. You kids who didn't grow up with the Ed Sullivan Show or Burt Sugarman's The Midnight Special, missed out on being exposed to wide spectrum and variety of music.(IMHO)
I even wore it while making dinner and accidentally melted one side of the cord to my earphones. Now only one side works.
Sigh . . . you get the picture.
I rock about the house with my iPod Nano almost grafted onto my waist. Often times I'm singing right along with the music, occasionally dancing - and have been caught by my children (in their middle to late teens and early 20s) who now inform me that it will take years of expensive therapy to rid them of those images.
So there I was, one Saturday in early January. I had begun pulling out stuff from the eaves of our bedroom and began sorting it. I sorted out books we could donate to our town's library garage sale, clothes for Goodwill, found artwork and school work from my children that caused me to stop and fondly remember, and also wondered why in the hell I had bought something, or when would my husband get around to putting up those curtain rods I bought 5 years ago. (etc. etc. etc.)
It was, as days go, entirely normal.
And just like any normal day there were many visits to the bathroom, because I drink plenty of ice tea during the day (no seriously I drink ice tea so much that there was a running joke that my son could get out of all trouble about violating his curfew if he plied me with ice tea.)
This visit would be different because upon standing, turning and pushing the handle to flush I noticed that my iPod was falling into the toilet, just as the water was swirling. It was still hooked into the earphones that were on my head. I quickly grabbed the cord and hopefully saved the Nano from the "water."
As soon as I saved the iPod, I reached for the clip that should have been on my waistband. It was gone! It was in the toilet, to get there it must have completed a half-gaynor with a double twist which would be the envy of Greg Louganis (if you don't know who that is, you're making me feel really old). The water was still swirling, it was still flushing so now here was my choice, do I go after it. . . or . . . hell no!, it's only $20
It was probably too late anyway, I consoled myself.
It will pass, I thought. - and that appeared true, until someone did something that was more substantial that what tea can produce.
. . . and then my job became plunging, plunging, and plunging some more.
Finally, I gave up and called our plumber (yes we have a guy, because this house was not only cheaply built, but cheaply plumbed as well), and told him what happened.
I'm not sure how much of an honor it is to be praised by your plumber when you can tell, or are willing to tell him exactly what it is that is stopping up your toilet. But praise I got.
He brought in the snake/rotor and couldn't break the $20 thick plastic protective case. He removed the toilet and went in from the bottom and still couldn't break the case that is designed not to break but to protect. And then informed me that we would have to buy a new toilet, there was nothing he could do.
The new toilet and the installation cost us $657.00
And I learned that I should have gone after the $20 protective case instead of the $135 iPod Nano, because he could have broken the iPod and saved me $522.