Chapter 16 - Prove to self

/Stephanie's Point of View/

One Tuesday morning, I woke up to the sound of a toilet running. It wouldn't shut up, and it wouldn't let me sleep. I tried shaking the handle, but that didn't fix anything. I opened the lid, but I wasn't sure what I was even looking at. Frustrated, I got dressed and tried to come up with a plan. I realized that because I no longer lived in an apartment or with someone else, I had no one to pawn this issue off upon. Ugh!

I determined that it was just making noise and didn't seem to be leaking on the floor or anything. My plan was to hunt down Casey when I got to the office. I was hoping he could tell me how to fix this or give me the name of a plumber to address the issue. I snapped a quick picture of the inside of the toilet…just in case it helped. My only other option was to shoot the damn toilet, but I didn't think I'd live that down after the apartment security system incident.

It was early, but I headed to the office to get away from the incessant running of the toilet. Casey wasn't on duty yet, so I hit the gym before work and followed up with a shower. When I was done with my shower, I headed to the breakroom to grab breakfast and ran into Mira stocking the fridge. She confirmed that Casey was up in his shop.

I headed over to his shop which was off the original building's dock. I found Casey working on installing some cabinetry in his new shop.

"You're up and about early, Bombshell. What can I help you with?" Casey greeted me with a smile.

"Morning, Casey. Got a question for you," I replied and Casey nodded. "A toilet at the house is running constantly. I don't have a clue what's wrong. Was wondering if you had the name of a plumber I could call?"

"I do have a plumber that could help, but running toilets aren't usually a difficult fix. It should be a simple repair. I can swing by the house and take a look. I'm assuming it shouldn't take more than an hour to fix, but I'll need to know what is wrong to pick up parts at the hardware store."

"You don't have to do that. You have more than enough to do here."

"Nonsense," he replied. "That house is part of my purview anyway."

"Is it really typically simple to fix? If so, could you possibly teach me to fix it?" I asked. I wasn't sure if that was a good idea or bad. I figured Joe and my mom would be mortified, so I figured I'd ask.

"Absolutely. It is likely fixing a broken part in the tank. Those are simple swaps."

"I took a photo of the inside of the tank. Would that help?" I asked.

"Potentially. Show me." Casey looked at the photo, but I have to admit it was a bit fuzzy.

Finally Casey responded. "I can't really tell what's going on, but the whole toilet kit looks relatively old. We might as well replace the whole system. That will also teach you how each part works anyway. It won't take much longer and really isn't all that costly…maybe $20 more."

So, later that afternoon, I met Casey at the house. He showed me how to turn off the water to the toilet which apparently would have fixed the noise issue this morning. Casey was beyond patient with me. While it did end up taking two hours to make the repair, I did the whole fix under Casey's tutelage. When we finished, I did a mental happy dance…and maybe an actual happy dance amusing Casey.

Later in the week, I was tasked with securing Chris Piddleton, an FTA that the Miami branch had tracked to our area. Apparently Piddleton enjoyed destroying police property and had reigned terror on various police vehicles across Florida. With Mace, I went after the FTA who was holed up at a relative's house. We parked down the street and waited until we saw the FTA drive into the garage. After waiting 15 minutes, we approached on foot. Mace took the front door while I took the rear door. Piddleton managed to slam the door in Mace's face; I needed to talk to him about making sure his boot was wedged in the door so that wasn't possible. Not thirty seconds later, Piddleton came running out the rear door. He did catch sight of me and came out swinging and cussing. I don't think he thought a woman could possibly take him down, but a swift uppercut followed by a kick to the leg had him down before he realized what was going on. Inside, I did a mental happy dance…and after I had him cuffed, I may have done an actual happy dance as well. I couldn't tell if Mace was amused. While he didn't know to put his boot in the door, he was up to speed on the blank face.

I'd been having an awesome week!

Friday came quickly, and I was looking forward to the weekend. However, by 0900 I'd given up hope for the day. For the last hour, our entire network had been glitching. Randomly, monitors would go down, then our security alarms would start beeping, having lost service, and then the servers would flip on and off. Our tech team was deployed to a client an hour from the office working on an install that was going wrong. Unfortunately, if they left, the client would be left with no security.

I finally put in a call to Hector to voice my frustration.

"Hola, Chica. Miss you!"

"Miss you, too, hermano. I'm about to run screaming. I need my Hector here. The system has gone haywire and is making me batty. And all the guys are on edge."

I spent the next five minutes giving Hector a run down of what had been happening. He attempted to remote into our system and was blocked by the glitching service. Finally, he asked me to video chat with him from my phone and walk through the server closet. On this virtual walk, I learned about routers, UPS, and switches. Not sure I'd remember it all, but it was interesting.

Hector finally asked me to unplug several switches and pieces of equipment and reroute them around the UPS. It was his hypothesis that the UPS was glitching despite being new. He ended up being right, and less than fifteen minutes later, our system was running smoothly again. Once again, I did a mental happy dance. Hector started laughing; apparently he could now see me on the main security cameras.

That evening, I sank into the hot tub with a glass of wine and realized I had held my own this week. Score one for independence! Once again, I did a mental happy dance.