I listen to National Public Radio (NPR) a lot, especially any show that feature stories. The other day I heard Amy Dickinsen tell about her summer vacation in a beach house.

The owner, Bob, left carefully written instructions around the house such as: ”The garbage is picked up on Tuesdays and Saturdays . .  . Please — no grilling in the garage . . . and  tiny signs taped onto the toilet tanks: To flush solids in one flush, hold handle down for 12.5 seconds.”

I laughed at the 12.5 seconds. Who times this stuff?

But then I thought about it more carefully because the plumber was scheduled to come to my house the next day to fix a slow draining toilet. Would 12.5 seconds do the trick?

It did. Then I experimented with lesser times and came up with the ideal 6 seconds. I’m happy to report that I solved the problem, was able to cancel the appointment with the plumber and saved myself a few bucks.

Thanks NPR!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 6th, 2011 at 2:51 pm and is filed under Arts. Tags for this post: National Public Radio, plumbers, stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.