Something momentous occurred today.

My toilet got fixed.

A little backstory (haw!): since we moved into this apartment, the toilet has always been a cranky old bastard. The outlet valve was dodgy, and sometimes didn't fall into place, and the tank would gargle malevolently as it wasted vast quantities of water while we ineffectually jiggled the handle, trying to pacify the wretched beast. But worse than that was the inlet valve that sits atop the float; as it struggled to refill the tank, it hissed anemically, spraying water in a thin spittle that would literally take as long as twenty fucking minutes to refill the tank. This was bad news when you found yourself having to take a crap, only to hear the doom-flush of Ye Olde Floor Tuba in the bathroom courtesy of someone else, and you'd realize: Fuck! It's going to take twenty minutes to fill up before I can flush again! Then you had a choice: sit for twenty minutes or squirm for twenty minutes.

You end up taking that sort of thing personally after a while. And because I am unbalanced, I attributed it all to accumulated aggression on the toilet's part. I imagined its cognizant soul, a deeply jaded and angry spirit that lived somewhere deep within its workings, thinking vile thoughts: Twenty five years I've had to placidly sit here whilst various humans have lowered their unlovely asses onto me and done unspeakable things. Drunks have pissed on my feet and vomited into my lap. Well, well. I can't do much. But I sure can make you wait for nearly half an hour before you can drop the next payload of fun, can't I? Chew on that, you lousy goo merchants!

But no longer. Today, at long last, I think our nightmare might be over. The plumber was summoned, and he waved his bejeweled plunger over the recalcitrant beast; when it shuddered, he caressed its sides and whispered complex hoodoos into the thing's lid; and when it cried, he held it like a mother. And after the ordeal, the toilet was reborn, its purpose restored, its hate dispelled. It is once again childishly eager to receive our benighted asses, and it coos when we enter the temple to perform our gastrointestinal sacraments.

I love this toilet, and it loves me. When I flush, it gives a mighty throaty roar, like the howl of a Gorgon. The mighty valve blasts water into the tank, singing a song of hydrodynamic hosannas, and fills the tank in under two minutes flat. This is a toilet with some fucking panache, people. In fact, I can't stop flushing it. I dance to the song of its mightiness, and I know sublimity. I have flushed this toilet 138 times in a row now. And I don't think I will stop, not tonight anyway.

It's the music of the spheres. One of the spheres even folds down. If that's not magic, I don't know what is.