Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for September 19, 2024

You should probably leave the room Punk.

Still need common sense!

Weeeeeell, looks like Mr. Knox has discovered what a “plumber’s helper” is for.

Sadly though, I fear that Gunther will return to the Gulag just in time to clean up the mess,

As USUAL. :-(

I’m with Knox. Google can answer a lot of questions you used to have to go to school for. Let’s see if this is one of those times.

Well, Les, let’s find out if your reading and comprehension levels are high enough to follow instructions and collecting the right stuff….and I think your diagnosis is off so I think you might’ve Googled up the wrong information.

A bottle of cola, a plunger and a water hose?

College won’t make you a plumber, either. That’s trade school material

Check. The. Tank!

Is Les gonna use the hose to suck on th toilet an start a siphon?

I’m worried about what’s in the bottle.

Next google “CLEANING UP BATHROOM MESS CAUSED BY TIK TOK SUGGESTION”.

Mebbe he should take th toilet outside so he can work on it

Stooopid!

Coke?

OK, I did a search and some folks claim that coca-cola helps unclog a toilet. I did not go to any of those sites, but it is clear that Les could have found something… But I am thinking it is probably not going to go well here …

Remember in CALVIN & HOBBES when Calvin decided to fix the leaky faucet?

Unless he did a plumbing course college wouldn’t help here anyway. Looks like he is being sensible – he has protective gear on, and basic equipment.

Guys, when you decide to become a DIY person and fix the toilet…please turn off the water first and foremost

That must have been a hell of a loaf Les pinched!

Maybe he eats too much cheese.

Well he just proved all the “kids these days can’t/aren’t inclined to fix anything” commenters wrong. But whether or not he makes it worse will be a different story. Now where’s that cloud we were all yelling at?

Flapper is stuck open, jiggle the handle and it’ll drop and shut the water off.

“A Man and his Cat”, what an inspiring, All American image.

I don’t know what he’s going to try, but is most certainly going to be a failure.

What’s he going to do with the garden hose???

At least he’s got a pair of goggles.

step one: turn off the water using that shutoff thingy near the floor. toilet isn’t clogged if water isn’t overflowing the bowl.

So are we going to see the gulag floating down the street?

It was someone with a college education who INVENTED Google, idiot!

I just hope Punk gets out OK after his master’s tinkering floods the whole gulag!

I don’t know. Maybe he’ll surprise us and fix the matter with little fuss. We’re expecting him to fail anyway, so it would be a clever subversion.

Actually, a college education wouldn’t help either. Better to have a community college class in plumbing, a helpful friend or uncle, or common sense as RQ suggests.

Here, the wise one is Punk who looks on with mild disdain.

For the record, I’ve had no training or advice how to fix a toilet except one exasperated landlord who said, “take the top (and cat) off the tank. See the plastic plug on bottom? Make sure it is snug.”. This advice has solved 73% of toilet trouble.

The other 27% solved with a plunger or ExLax©

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh this is not gonna end well…(gets the popcorn)

Les doesn’t need to go out for excitement. He makes his own at home.

Lord help us all.

“Shut up and feed me.”

Well, he did ask a question. What other answer is there?

Move cat. Remove tank lid. If there is a flapper it will be there.

Likely Google will lead to a YouTube instruction vid.

May not need college, but might need a plumber.

if the toilet flushed but the water is still running (slightly) then the rubber flap on the bottom of the back tank probably isn’t sealed firmly over the hole and the tank is still draining…… is what i think.

Les is going to make a giant production; then Bets and Gun will come home, lift the cover on the back tank and re-position the rubber flap, and that will be the end to the problem.

This should be good.

Not sure that’s what most colleges are teaching anyway

On-the-job training for Les’ future career. (Punk will be his supervisor)

This moron is going to cause a plumbing disaster, and perhaps kill his cat.

I don’t have a good feeling about this…!

Famous last words.

\\//_

Punk doesn’t seem too sure that Les is doing the right thing. Let’s see what a mess he’ll make with that pipe and that bottle of cola. Maybe this will make him decide to take a plumbing course.

Or you could call a plumber.

Uh-oh! You’d better run, you little Punk!

This isn’t going to be good for anybody?!!

Now if the plumbing in Les and Gunther’s bathroom is connected to the plumbing in Al and Irma’s bathroom, we could have a truly messy kettle of fish!

With the Coke, shouldn’t he have some Mentos?

Discovering the joys of being a plumber.

I’ve been enjoying the cat art this week. I like how Punk is drawn.

What could possible go wrong?

It’s still running because the handles stuck or something in the tank is keeping the plug from closing all the way

The lump actually tries to think!

Or Lowe’s and a weird, awkward looking gizmo called a Plumber’s Snake that costs about $20 and saves you about $60 plus service fee for some guy to come in and use the same thing for the same desired result. AND can be used multiple times! Told to The Count by a friend, a plumber’s friend, to be exact. Dilly! Dilly! and trust The Count on this.

True story. In the middle of the night while sleeping I hear a quiet tap tap tap and a whispered Dad. Then repeated a little louder, then louder. What is it son? I can’t get the toilet to stop running and it is overflowing. Me: leaping out of bed, WHAT! Water was all over the place, in the hall, running down the floor vent and out into the kitchen below. All I had to do was open the tank lid and put down the flapper that was caught in the open position. Me: If it had been a fire would you have handled it the same way? Son: No I would have ran outside.

Well, $70,000 later and partly covered by insurance, we had that brand new kitchen my wife had always wanted along with two remodeled bathrooms. The one that flooded and the master that was on the other side of the wall and wet too.

Following bad internet advice? Now THAT’S a story arc I can get behind!

I think I may be done with this strip. Tiresome and boring repetition of non-humorous nonsense.

“Some flap…”

There’s NO flap, kid!

Gotta admit, youtube helped me fix a leak in my sink when an entire cartridge needed to be replaced in my faucet instead of a simple washer to fix a leak in my bathroom sink. Just finished that last week.

Just jiggle the handle…the flapper’s stuck open!

The Internet can actually help you through basic home maintenance task like fixing a plugged toilet, actually. Do take the time to read (or watch the video) all the way through before commencing the task, though, and I find it’s also helpful to read/view more than once piece of advice on the subject before beginning work.

oh s%$#!! This can only end badly.

Call Ramen Rooter.

Les call Frank

I want to slap my forehead!

LOL! Sign on a plumbers truck… Go Ahead And Try To Fix It! We Like It Botched!

you take the lid off the top and realign the flap so it covers the hole, most of the time that’s how you fix a running toilet

What could go wrong?

I’ve posted this a few days ago on “Baby Blues” Les, your local plumber thanks you.

Did you try jiggling the handle? Sometimes just a look in the tank will show what the problem is, if you’ve got any mechanical aptitude at all. Maybe the chain got twisted and knotted, or looped around the lifting bar, or the Ty-D-Bowl™ biscuit slid over and is holding the flapper up.

Punk would say “call a plumber”,

No good can come from this, sez me…..

This is going to be messy.

What moron doesn’t know how to fix a toilet or unplug it?

This will not end well.

I know exactly what needs to be done.

This ain’t it.

Does Les think that unclogging toilets is a task normally requiring a college degree?

If Les googled “clogged toilet” then he got the wrong information. The toilet is not clogged. The plug did not fall back into place in the upper tank.

Step 1: Remove Punk from the top of the toilet tank. Step 2. Remove top of toilet tank. Step 3. Reach in and push plug back into place. He can use the stick end of the plunger if he doesn’t want to use his hands. Step 4. TELL UNCLE AL!! The float ball valve mechanism may need to be replaced. It’s a quick, easy, inexpensive fix, not that I paid for it. I just told my landlord. It’s up to him to pay for repairs.

Get the toilet kit at the hardware store and change everything

Leave it to a comic strip to bring out every amateur plumber on the planet. It’s supposed to be funny people. I’m fairly sure they aren’t fishing for suggestions on how to fix a toilet.

Jiggle the handle is to toilets as rebooting is to computers.

He’s got the cola, but he forgot the mentos…

Gotta be YouTube video that covers it for sure! That’s where I start !

If plumbers in LA are anything like in Austin he is looking at least $200 for a service call.

It almost certainly wasn’t broken before, but it will be by Saturday.

Or YouTube.

Actually Les, if Gunther didn’t know what to do about a running toilet, looking how to fix the problem is exactly what he’d do. Except he’d include a “home handyman” book of simple home repairs as one of his sources. (Presuming that they’re still being published.)

cue the dark ambient music with discordant overtones which, although broadly tonal, is inflected with chromatic and polytonal passages representing the archetypal example of a florid, melodramatic style without being interpreted as an overly heavy-handed metaphor within the context of the thematic material a bit on the frenetic and frantic side with interesting rhythmic devices which seem to counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor utilizing a novel imaging technique known as positron emission tomography and the spontaneous nondenominational conceptions by expansively recontextualizing liminal narratives of colonic hydrotherapy with a twinge of giddiness and bilateral gynandromorph

When we bought our first house in 1984, my husband took a community ed class on “simple sink and toilet repair.” I didn’t know whether to laugh or worry about potential disasters that could result. But none did, luckily. I appreciate his abilities, because I inherited my dad’s general mechanical ineptitude. My mom wasn’t especially inclined that way either, but she knew how to wield that plunger.

Whatever Les’s doing, I hope he washes his hands really well when he’s done.

I like this kid!

Youtube videos have saved me thousands of $$$ in home/appliance repairs.

I foresee a flood of activity

If he really wants to fix it himself, the first thing he should be doing is moving Punk from the lid so he can see if the stopper’s chain came loose. Then he can put the stopper in place and let the toilet do its thing.

There’s also YouTube University. He may want to check that out.

Okay, now it’s a party!

Punk, you better move!

Just jiggle the blasted handle, nitwit!

Making it worse Les!!

Probably just needs a new flap