Monday, December 5, 2011

How to Not Caulk Your Bathtub with Construction Adhesive

Step 1.  Do not realize your shower door is leaking the day before you're supposed to have company for Thanksgiving.

Step 2.  Do not scramble to make a list of things you will need for your first-ever caulking job by Googling "how to caulk a bathtub," even though you need to leave for work in under fifteen minutes. 

Step 3.  Do not proceed to ask your husband to go to Lowe's to buy things on said list so that you will have more time to get ready for work.

Step 4.  When your husband returns from Lowe's with a tube of something that doesn't have the word "caulk" anywhere on it, do not accept his explanation that it "has to be caulk because it was in the caulk section."

Step 5.
  Do not get home from work at 7:30 PM and start caulking your bathtub even though you're really tired and you still have some misgivings about this weird tube of stuff that does not claim to be caulk. 

Step 6.  Do not assume that using a caulk gun will require anything less than godlike upper body strength.  More importantly, do not start thinking about the fact that your eighty-two-year-old grandfather re-caulks his bathtub all the time and you can't even squeeze this stupid trigger with your pathetic stick-arms.

Step 7.  Do not put down the caulk gun so that you can slump against the shower wall for a moment, sweating and gasping for breath, only to look down and discover that a steady stream of (what you still believe to be) caulk has been oozing onto the floor of your bathtub because you didn't loosen the twisty-thing on the caulk gun.

Step 8.  When your husband gets home from work three hours later and you are still caulking that freaking bathtub, do not accidentally turn around and put your elbow in the area you just spent an hour caulking and then start crying and screaming obscenities.

Step 9.  When you fail to follow steps 1-8 and the "caulk" you worked so hard to apply turns to goo the first time you take a shower in that bathtub, even though you let it set up for 24 hours just like the instructions said, show the mysterious tube of something-other-than-caulk to your mother-in-law's husband, who will point out that you have sealed the edges of your bathtub with construction adhesive.

Step 10.  Remove all evidence of the construction adhesive goo and call your landlord to see if he'll re-caulk your bathtub for you.

2 comments:

  1. omygosh, I laughed so hard when I first read this! I had to re-read it a few more times to make sure I didn't miss any of the funny things the first time. Then I left a brilliant comment, commenting on your brilliantness and making myself also look uber-brilliant by association. I typed in the super-secret anti-spam password in the crazy font. Alas, I did not click on the "post comment" button. But I thought I did. But I did not. So I will try to this time.

    best,
    MOV
    ps-- is your elbow recovered from the non-caulk caulk getting all over it?

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  2. You could also accomplish this by buying all the things (possibly even actual caulk!)to re-caulk the tub and then leave them sitting in the garage for a year. I wish I had a landlord. *sniffle*

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