I plumb therefore I am

Our kitchen sink broke. It worked, and then 10 seconds later, it was spraying water faster than you can even imagine. Luckily, Lucas and I were smart enough to turn off the water from under the sink... but that's about as much kitchen sink plumbing we knew. (I have fixed two toilets in the past... once by using my "how to fix everything" book, and once by just looking and knowing how to fix the broken handle... but kitchen sinks were new to me.)

I tried the "if I just unscrew this one screw, maybe I can tell what broke". This failed me. So, we invited our friend Dave over. Dave is the handyman/electric engineer/all around good guy in our life. He came over last night with his tools, rag and plumber grease. (notice in the picture the tube-o-goo). He found the broken piece: the black and white tube thingy on the right of the picture.

We first went to Fred Myers (the one stop shopping store) but they did not have the piece.

We then went to Lowe's... they were rude, and did not have the piece. By this point, it was after nine, and everything was closed. So Dave told me what I needed to do, and I set off on my plumbing adventure this morning.

First we went to Home Depot... they were nice, but didn't have the piece.

Then to George Morlan (the water heater king). It took them a while, but finally found the replacement for the broken piece. Twenty buck later, I was on my way home. (while 20 buck seems like a lot of money for a tiny piece of plastic, it's still cheaper than a whole new faucet, and I knew how to fix my sink with this piece, I still do not know how to replace an entire faucet.)
On the left is the part that broke away from the white round piece.
Now that I was home with my round white plumbing piece, I went to work. I did it just like Dave said, lube it up, hand twist this one piece, then finish with a quick flick of the wrench. Placed everything back as we found it. Problem one: the hot and cold were backwards. I fixed that by taking of and replacing the handle. Problem two: a leak, a drippy leak. This hadn't been talked about by Dave... so I took everything apart AGAIN, and put everything back on. Finally my sink is back to normal. I am a plumber! Of course, I couldn't have done this without Dave... but maybe now I'll know more for next time the house breaks!

Finally, the cute picture of Owen.