No problem. Go into my son's room, pop the trouble door on the tub to turn off the water.

No cut offs.

We've got cut offs for every sink and both toilets, but not the tub. Go down the basement; try to turn off the outlet for the hot water. Bad news: That hasn't been turned in so long, it's corroded (or has mineral build up) and I can't really turn it off. Instead, I turn off the water to the whole house. SWHTL is not pleased - she didn't get to take a shower.

Study the apparently sealed pieces of the tub enclosure.

Take a screwdriver and take of the knobs. Well, that certainly helped.

Take a pipe wrench and try twisting the entire hot water tap. Hurrah! The whole thing, fixture and all, twists off. Except it wasn't supposed to - it seems that corrosion has bonded the piece of chrome and plastic to the brass fitting. Okay. The fitting is allowed to come off, though. Washer is obviously shot, but that is obviously not the problem. Okay. Take the piece with me.

Sears Hardware: Sorry, they cut way back on our selection.

Home Depot: Guy spends a good 20 minutes helping me figure out exactly what brand it was, only to tell me they didn't have it. On the other hand, he does sell me some cut off valves and some "shark bites". I am very dubious about these things. On the gripping hand, he was also able to separate the fixture from the brass fitting, which is apparently called a "stem".

Various Professional Plumbing Places: What, are you kidding? It's a Saturday.

Call a plumber: What, are you kidding? It's a Saturday. Even if he came, see previous point.

Call neighbor: Answering machine.

It is now dinner time. Deciding we need some water, I put the fixture back into the shower, turn off the hot water as best I can, and turn the house water back on. At least we can flush toilets and wash our faces in 40 degree water. (You gotta love snowmelt!) No dish washer, so I boil some water on the stove to make hot water for Troll, Jr. to do the hand washing.

Neighbor gets home, but he's cross eyed from a long day - he repairs commercial kitchen equipment for a living - i.e., restaurant gear, and spent the entire day trying to fix the hydraulics on a - not kidding - cheese steak press. On the other hand, he says "Shark Bites! Those are cool!". The four of us gather on his deck - it's just warm enough - and have a dinner of pizza and beer. I buy the first round (of both) and after our combined kids decimate the pizzas, they buy the second. It was just barely warm enough to sit out on the deck, but with the beer we didn't mind. We make plans to install the cut offs tomorrow night after he gets back.

Sunday comes, and goes, and SWHTL starts making dinner when the neighbors arrive. We pull out a couple of more filets mignon and SWHTL starts working on them - much to her dismay, because she's never cooked filets mignon. I showed her the basic recipe I use (sear in a red-hot cast iron pan, let sit for 20 minutes in butter, bake for 3-5 minutes at 475, let sit for another 10) and neighbor and I go upstairs to check out these "shark bites".

It turns out that shark bites are a new kind of no-solder fitting. You cut the pipe, polish the end, push this thing on and, presto, you're done. The most amazing part is that the brass part actually still spins. This meant that neighbor and I could cut out two 4" chunks of shower pipe, push on the shark bites, slip the cut offs into the gaps and tighten them up. No sweat. The first one took about 30 minutes as we worked out what the procedure was, and if it would work, and the second one took about five.

Excellent. Now I've got hot water to everywhere except the shower, which means we can run the dish washer, the washing machine and so on.

Monday morning comes, up at 6:30 AM to hit the first plumbing supply house. Good news: Home Depot guy got the brand and part # right. Bad news: they don't have it either. Go home start googling for plumbing supply houses. Discover that the manufacturer of said part is actually in Malvern, about 10 miles from my house. Except they don't sell to the public, silly. Come up with several more likely candidates ranging from Norristown to the east, to Reading in the west. One place sells on the internet, using a website straight out of 1994. At least they didn't use blink tags. But they do have PDF part lists and they do list the right brand. Call several times, no answer. Fine.

Start hitting supply houses, but I get no love. One after another, nothing. Finally I get to where the internet place is actually located - in the rear entrance of a warehouse by the local crop-duster airport. Go in, spend 20 minutes playing with the world's largest puppy - he's obviously a puppy because he's so freaking eager to play, but he's already the size of a full grown labrador retriever. No idea what the breed was, he was a short-hair with snow white fur, one blue eye and one brown. While I'm playing with the puppy, the owner is trying - very hard - to answer the continuously ringing phone. Occasionally he yells at the puppy to leave me alone, but I don't mind too much. What's really funny is that if both of us (owner and I) try to ignore the puppy, he starts chewing the corner of a box of parts. If I look at him and say "no", he stops, wags his tail and, the moment I look away, he starts again.

Pure mischief, that one.

So, after 20 minutes, I'm covered with snow white dog hair and the owner finally hangs up the phone looks at the stem I've been trying to show him, reaches under the counter and pulls out a shiny new one. Huzzah! $20 US later I'm on my way home. Screw the new fitting in. Double huzzah! Everything goes back together, I jump in the shower and get clean. Life is good.

And then go to the dentist where I spend two hours in a chair while she grinds down a tooth and puts two different temporary crowns on it. (I broke the first one.)

I hate Mondays.

Update [2008-4-15 9:4:18 by ObviousTroll]: IMPORTANT NOTE: We are a tool using species. If you cannot use tools, it's time to hit the zoo, dude.