When It Rains, It Pours

It's been an annoying few days here...

First, the plumbing problem we thought we solved wasn't solved at all.  I thought the problem was the toilet wax ring so we paid a reasonable amount to have a guy come over and change that part out.  He noticed that the insides of the toilet were spraying water everywhere because of hard water build up so hubby and I replaced those parts.  A few days later I notice ANOTHER leak.  The only part that hadn't been changed was the gasket between the tank and the bowl so hubby and I got a new gasket set and changed that part out (there turned out to be a hole in the old gasket) and it STILL leaked.  When I Googled the brand of toilet, it noted that it needed the special gasket made only for that brand of toilet so off to the home improvement store we went today to get the right kind of gasket.  We just fixed it and hopefully (crossing my fingers) the leak problem is finally solved!

Then a couple days ago we were awakened in the middle of the night with the loud chirping of the smoke detector in the upstairs hall.  We (both hubby and I took turns) hopped up on a ladder to reach the second story ceiling (yikes), replaced the battery in the smoke detector, and it STILL chirped.  So I Googled (I don't know what I would do without Google and YouTube) and it said that we had to reset the smoke detector (who knew?) and that seemed to solve the problem until a couple hours later when the incessant chirping started again.  Since the battery was old, we figured it might be dead-ish as well so we bought another battery today and (fingers crossed again) it hasn't chirped since.

Then a few hours ago we were leaving the casino after hubby played poker and our (one and a half year old basically new) car was dead.  The key fob wouldn't unlock the door and when we got in the car (thank goodness there is still a key lock in the driver's side door), the car wouldn't start at all.  Thankfully it still has the three-year roadside assistance that comes with the new car so we called and waited a bit and a guy showed up and jumped the car.  He told us that car batteries usually only last about two years in Las Vegas due to the high heat but since the battery is covered by the car warranty I will be taking it to the dealership tomorrow to get a new battery.

On the one hand, all of these annoyances took time away from other things we could be doing and they were pretty stressful when the simple fixes didn't work.  On the other hand, things could be worse.  At least hubby was with me (after his heart attack a month ago I really appreciate us both being able to solve these problems together), at least the fixes weren't expensive (a lady on the news recently got a $10,000 bill to fix a drain problem that happened in her yard so she is responsible for it yikes!), and with the internet and step-by-step instructions, we are able to fix these problems easily enough.  Needless to say, I will be getting AAA when the roadside assistance program expires!