Last weekend before I headed out on yet another business trip my two year old dropped a toy into the toy-let. I mean toilet. My wife was in the bathroom and attempted to reach into the toilet before the princess drowned, flushed and caused blockage that only mouse-produced royalty could cause. After washing her hands like she had an OCD disorder she came downstairs and alerted me to the problem at hand. I went to the hardware store later that evening and picked up an auger (also called a snake) but had no luck getting the princess to come out of her cave. Apparently the dragons had gotten to her and she was going to need a knight to rescue her. I was thinking a hired knight that charged $45.00 an hour or more.

It turns out that I’m cheap because after some searching on the interwebs I figured that I had a chance at disassembling my toilet/floor connection and getting the princess out myself. So I went to the hardware store and purchased a new wax ring to re-seal the toilet upon successfully removing it from the floor, some caulk (to reseal the grout that was attaching the toilet to the floor as well), and a large plastic drop cloth to put the toilet on so that extra water could be prevented from getting all over our tile floor. As it turned out the drop cloth was not as effective as it could have been but we’ll ignore that problem because this story is less concerned with my failure to contain all of the water.

I had the help of my brother-in-law who kindly used my utility knife to separate the grout from the toilet’s base and then helped me power-lift the toilet from the grout, caulk and wax ring that were underneath the already heavy toilet. The toilet came up, off onto the plastic, and I took an auger to the drain pipe in the floor hoping to retrieve the damsel in distress. No luck, the number-two ogres must have her trapped somewhere else. I rocked the toilet backwards and to my pleasant surprise the “princess of poop” was wedged sideways just inside the mouth of the toilet! I removed her from the ‘can’ and threw her away. I may be cheap, but my daughters don’t get a second chance with girls who hang out in such low class establishments.

I placed a new wax ring down on the floor making sure the sticky wax surface was facing upwards and the gasket was facing down into the floor pipe. I then lined up the bolts that hold the toilet to the collar in the floor so that they would be parallel with one another and hopefully lined up with the toilet’s holes. The most important next step was to take some scrap wood and place it on either end of the toilet’s home and give myself time to line up the bolts and toilet’s fastening holes before removing the wood (with the help of the brother-in-law again) and seating the toilet on the wax ring – you don’t want to mess that up or you could have biological gunk all over your bathroom floor or a waxy mess that you have to replace. We got the bolts and toilet lined up and then removed the wood slowly and positioned the toilet so that the grout matched up just right.

Mission accomplished! In about an hour the princess was saved (and then trashed) and the toilet was cleared – flushing like it was brand new. I had saved money, practiced something mechanical and out of my comfort zone, and got to feel the pride of having done something myself where before I was going to hire it out. There is nothing quite like taking care of your family to bring out an enjoyment of things as mundane as a toilet. Plus now I can tell stories and have G-rated potty humor.