Well, we made it home safely. The surprise b-day party for my grandpa was indeed a surprise.
We stopped by the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY on the way home. It was interesting and they extracted a large sum of money from my wallet at the gift shop. We bought a big pile of books and DVDs.
It seems like just yesterday that the boys were losing teeth. Now Danny is taking classes at the college and Aaron has a job at Quiznos. Things change too fast!
So I left work early on Friday, headed out to Newnan to buy my goofy sized toilet from the plumbers supply store. (I'm remodeling the downstairs bathroom.)
As I left, I thought, "you know... I never actually measured this toilet to see if it was goofy sized too like the last one was." I was just assuming it was since the last one I replaced was.
I measured and found that it was indeed "normal" sized. Awesome, I thought, now I can go buy a $75 toilet instead of a $150 one.
Off to Home Depot I went. I looked at all the different models.... (there is a mind-numbing selection of toilets.) Luckily, they have started listing a "performance rating" on each toilet.... most of the Sub $100 toilets had a rating of 2.5 - 3.0. The $300 models have a rating of 10.0
The sales lady said it was great because if my kids drop toys in the toilet, they will easily flush away. Wait a minute... having Tonka toys in the plumbing under the house may NOT be a good thing. I think I'd rather they stayed in the toilet.
Then she says, oh. Do you live in an older house? Why yes, yes I do.
Sales Lady: "Maybe you'd be interested in this toilet. It has a rating of 4.0 and is an Ultra low flush toilet (1.26 gallons per flush). It's on sale for $128.
I quickly start doing math in my head and determine the water savings payback will take roughly 18 years.
Me: "No, I'll take one of these cheaper ones."
Sales Lady: "Oh, did I tell you about the $100 rebate the Fayette County Water district will give you if you install this Ultra low flush toilet?"
Me: "I'll take it."
So I got a new toilet for $28.
It uses less than 1/3 the water the old one did. It's in the downstairs powder room bathroom, so it gets 75% of the household flushes.
I'm waiting for my card from Al Gore.
I feel all good about myself now. Maybe I'll hug a tree later.
