comfort height

Since we seem to be discussing bathrooms, I will also tell you something you may not know: There are two kinds of toilets, regular and "comfort height." A "comfort height" toilet is four inches taller than a normal toilet. Towering. You might want to own one of these when your arthritic knees no longer bend at all, because it might be more "comfortable" for you. I tell you this as a favor, as it is something you might someday want to know about.

Sometimes, however, a person accidentally comes to own a "comfort height" toilet when, oh, let's say Home Depot were to get her order wrong and slip her one, unmarked and incognito. And if this were to happen, she might unknowingly take it home and install it, and perch upon it as if it were a tall, tall barstool, and say to herself, hmm, this feels wrong. And her child might be unable to hoist her little bottom up onto the seat. And her husband might tease her for buying a geriatric toilet, and her aunt Cherie might confirm that it is in fact a geriatric toilet. And while she might pretend to laugh along with them, it actually perhaps makes her want to cry, because her cute little corner sink now looks disproportionately tiny and stupid, and she really liked that sink.

Can you believe that this very thing happened to us? In the little bathroom off the mudroom.

But all of these events led up to one very astounding plot twist. I think that here in this blog Matt or I may have mentioned that I really hate Home Depot. With, like, blinding rage. Their screws and fasteners aisle particularly gets to me. Which is a digression. So last week, I went to talk to the store's customer service people about this comfort height fiasco, and they said "bring it back." Simple as that.

It had not occured to me that we could pry up a toilet that we had installed and used and bring it back for a full refund, but there you go. Matt got it out of the bathroom and into the car, and then Audrey and I drove it to Home Depot, loaded it into a cart and trundled it in, boxless and dismantled, a used toilet, and we exchanged it for a regular-sized toilet, and the people at the customer service desk gave Audrey a little Home Depot apron and invited her back the next day to make a butterfly house, maybe to compensate, I don't know. And all of a sudden, Home Depot is okay with me.