The first warning sign was probably the grinding slide of the toilet seat that morning, proof that it had come loose from its moorings and was quite separate from the toilet’s base. Closer inspection revealed the seat was attached by a single screw, giving every sedentary moment on our only toilet a cool new feature; the relaxing, meditative feel of Charlie Brown sledding down a snowy hill on an upturned tray.
A further layer of doom descended an hour later, when an unedifying crack reverberated inside the cistern as I turned the toilet’s handle. A peek beneath its lid revealed the plastic bit that connects the lever to the handle had, conveniently, snapped in two.
