Plumbing. I *hate* plumbing.
Yesterday I noticed water around the base of my downstairs toilet. OK, the building is 42 years old, and that's undoubtedly the original wax ring sealing the toilet to the sewer. I had one of the neighbors help do the upstairs toilet last year just after I broke my wrist. I shut the water off with the gate valve. Oops. That's also 42 years old, and now it's leaking furiously. I managed to crank it down to 1 drop every second or two, put a large pan underneath and went to Home Depot to buy a wax ring, a replacement shut-off valve, and a replacement hose to connect from the new shut-off valve to the toilet tank. Might as well get everything, even though the old hose looked OK.
I emptied the pan just before going to bed. When I woke this morning, I had around a gallon or two of water on the bathroom floor where it'd overflowed the pan during the night. I dry it all up, and start in on the destruction. It took nearly an hour to cut the old bolts off as they were corroded. Then I could remove the toilet. Yep, looked like 40 year old wax to me! I cleaned that shit up, and managed to pry the bits of the two bolts out of the flange on the floor.
I started in on the leaking gate valve, and got it unsoldered from the copper pipe sticking out of the wall. The new replacement valve is a 1/4 turn ball-check valve that I've used before, so it ought to last for a decade or two. Hmmm. Can't get all of the silver solder off of the pipe, so I'll have to cut off about 1/2 inch to get to smooth copper that the compression fitting on the new valve will clear. Of course, my copper tubing cutter decides to take a shit, and it took a good 30 minutes to cut the tube (should have been a minute). I guess I need a new blade for my tubing cutter. New valve is now in place, so I pressure-test and it's all OK. I manage to tip the toilet over after soaking out all the water in tank and bowl, and clean off the bottom where the new ring goes. Still all OK. Getting the toilet guided over the two bolts was a FUCKING NIGHTMARE with 1 and 1/2 hands (can't put any force on my left hand) but I got it settled smoothly, and gently forced it down to get the wax to squish out and seal to the flange / bottom of the bowl.
Not counting the trip to Home Depot last night, I was done with a 30 minute job, 4 hours later. Did I mention that I HATE FUCKING PLUMBING? I have all of the right tools and some good practical experience over the years, but it's still a damned annoyance.