I am not a plumber

But I am handy once in a while. I got up and discovered that my toilet wouldn't flush and the handle was apparently not connected to anything.

The little arm that connects the handle to the chain in the tank broke off from the handle. I tried taking the handle and lever from the less-used downstairs toilet, but each toilet has a totally different type of chain and I couldn't find a good permanent way to secure the chain to the lever. For now, I had to use some string to hold it all together until we can get a compatible replacement. But it works and my toilet flushes again without me having to reach into the tank for the chain.

The hardest part was getting the bolts loosened. I was doing my best with a wrench but I wasn't getting anywhere. Turns out that the handle lever bolts tighten opposite to normal. So it's righty-loosey lefty-tighty. Once I knew that I didn't even need any tools.

I'm glad my dad had me help out with fix-it stuff growing up. I'm a little better prepared to at least diagnose these little repairs now, if not fix them.