The Turn of the Screw

The photo is of the old & new versions of the bolts under the sink that hold the faucet to the countertop.  I wound up replacing the bathroom faucet assembly due to a classic homeowner thought process of looking at a small problem and thinking, I can fix this in like five minutes.  The faucet handle (kind of like this one) was grody, so I thought I'd just pop it off and replace it.  The handle I bought was about $8.  But I was having trouble finding the set screws on the adapter piece (they were there, they're just really really small) and I was just taking the old and new ones apart and putting them back and generally fiddling too much until I'd stripped the screw of the old one and couldn't get it off at all, so decided to replace the whole thing.  Faucet assembly = $65.  I do know how to do this, and knew the copper supply lines are brittle, so I was very careful disconnecting them, but broke one anyway, and got to replace that (with flex-hose), too.  Four trips to two hardware stores later, it was all good.

For whatever reason I left he old faucet sitting in my kitchen sink.  The next morning, I was very surprised to see a very very large spider scuttle out of the thing.  It was very very very possibly a black widow.  I am not overly afraid of spiders and have a calm, cool, and collected method for capturing them and releasing them outdoors.  This method was completely forgotten as I invented a new process on the spot which involved hurriedly pulling on my dishwashing gloves, picking up the faucet, running outside, and, I am ashamed to say, flinging the spider over the fence into my neighbor's yard.  Then I headed directly for my outdoor garbage bin and dropped the old faucet in.  I guess that's one way to not wind up hanging onto old,broken things for too long.