You should worry incessantly about your plumbing. No doubt you have heard the tragic story of the family who went away on vacation, unaware that one of their pipes had sprung a small leak. By the time they returned, the leak had destroyed the home and all their possessions, forcing them to collect $175,000 from the insurance company and use the money to go to Hawaii and buy a small, chic restaurant that became fabulously successful, so now all they do is lie around on the beach sipping tropical rum drinks.

This needless tragedy would never have occurred if this family had taken more of an interest in its plumbing. Plumbing is one of the easiest of do-it-yourself activities, requiring only a few simple tools and a willingness to stick your arm into a clogged toilet after a diseased houseguest has used it. In fact, you can solve many home plumbing problems, such as an annoying faucet drip, merely by turning up the radio. But before we get into any specific plumbing techniques, let’s look at how plumbing works.

A plumbing system is very much like your electrical system, except that instead of electricity, it has water, and instead of wires, it has pipes, and instead of radios and waffle irons, it has faucets and toilets. So the truth is that your plumbing system is nothing at all like your electrical system, which is good, because electricity can kill you.

The major problem with plumbing systems is that they leak. To understand why, imagine that you’re on a cross-country bus trip and you have drunk three six-packs of beer single-handedly and you really, really have to go to the bathroom, only the bus doesn’t have a bathroom and the driver refuses to stop until he gets to Elkhart, Indiana, which is 280 miles away. That is how your home plumbing system feels all the time. It sits there filled with water, day in and day out, until after a while all it can think about is leaking.

The key to preventing leaks is proper maintenance. At least once a year (and more often if you have a small brain) you should go around and poke at the various elements of your plumbing system with the end of a cane. If you see anything the least bit suspicious, make a note of it in a spiral notebook. This routine maintenance program will prevent many plumbing headaches. And if anything does go wrong, don’t be afraid to tackle it yourself. Remember: The only difference between you and an experienced master plumber is that he is an experienced master plumber, whereas you are not.

What to do when a pipe breaks

1. Go down to the dankest corner of the basement and locate the valve that turns off all the water in the house. This will be the valve that is covered with slime and a spiderweb containing a spider and the festering bodies of dead insects.

2. Using a 3/4-inch drive socket wrench or a tire iron, prod the spider firmly until it scuttles off to some other area of the basement, muttering angrily.

3. Turn the valve handle clockwise until it breaks off in your hand like a damp pretzel, which is the signal that the water is off.

4. Locate the broken pipe and replace it with a new pipe in such a manner that it will not leak even when it has water going through it.

5. Have a plumber turn the water back on. This job is best left to a professional, since (a) the handle is broken off and (b) the spider has returned with thousands of poisonous friends and relatives to defend the valve. Be sure to select a plumber who has a good reputation and life insurance and a flamethrower.

The history of the toilet

The toilet was invented several hundred years ago by Sir Robert Toilet, an Englishman who was trying to put an end to war. At the time, everybody went to the bathroom outdoors, which, as you can imagine, was fairly disgusting. So countries were always trying to go to the bathroom in other countries. Thousands of, say, Frenchmen would suddenly appear in Germany, relieve themselves, and stride back to France, snickering; the next day even greater numbers of Germans would retaliate. Eventually the dispute would escalate into a war, which was even worse, because of the horses. Then, thankfully, Sir Robert had his idea: Instead of going to the bathroom on the ground in other countries, why not go to the bathroom in a toilet? This would put an end to needless wars and give everybody a chance to read magazines. The idea caught on, and today very few wars are caused by the French and the Germans going to the bathroom on each other’s land, which is not to say that they don’t want to.

Three Useful Tips for Unclogging a Clogged Toilet

Before you attempt to unclog the toilet, make sure that it is a toilet that you are responsible for. If it is in a public restroom, or someone else’s home, don’t give it another thought. Just sidle out of the room as if nothing has happened.

If the clog is caused by something soft, such as a corsage, you can dislodge it simply by firing a .22-caliber pistol into the toilet.

For tougher clogs, such as turtles or jewelry, you’ll need to flush a lit cherry bomb, which you can obtain from any reliable teenager.

Walls are an important part of any home, because they keep the roof from falling down and damaging your television set. But walls are more than just structural; they are also large objects that you have to cover with something. The three major wall coverings, in ascending order of unattractiveness, are paint, wallpaper, and paneling.

1. To determine how much paint you’ll need, stand with your back against an end wall of the room you plan to paint, then take little mincing steps across the room until you mince into the opposite wall. Now repeat the procedure, only start with your back against a side wall. Now multiply the number of steps by the length of your foot in inches, making sure you subtract for windows. This will tell you the number of square inches your floor would be if it had windows in it.

2. Go to a paint store and buy six gallons of paint. Oil-based paint is tough and adheres extremely well to any surface, especially human skin. Your best bet is latex paint, which comes in a wide variety of colors, all of them white. Well, almost white. Paint manufacturers have tried for years to make plain white paint, but unfortunately their factories are old and unsanitary, and the paint batches always end up getting contaminated with rodent droppings. So all the paint comes out off-white, and they have to give it classy names like Oyster White or Antique White, on the grounds that nobody would buy it if they called it Rodent Dropping White.

3. Now it’s time to paint. Read the directions on the paint can, which will contain some snotty statement such as “CAUTION: SURFACE MUST BE FREE OF

DIRT, GREASE, AND PEELING OR FLAKING PAINT.” This is utter nonsense, of course. If the surface were free of dirt, grease, and peeling or flaking paint, why on earth would you want to paint it? So don’t waste any time preparing the surface. Go ahead and paint the damn surface, dirt and all. If you see any insects, paint over them, too, unless they are major tropical insects, in which case you should first smash them flat with a

23-ounce rubbertipped mallet, such as your professional painters use.