Diagnosis: leaves in the vent stack causing a clog.

Leaves are now gone. Plumber will be back on Friday to make the vent stack longer in the hopes of preventing this problem in the future. (I always worried the vent stack was too short, it only extends like 4" above the roof surface.)

Another thing - they first tried removing the toilet and snaking from that drain. And one of the plumbers comes out to me where I am studiously trying NOT to listen in and worry about what's wrong, and says, "Ma'am? Did you know that the toilet was installed wrong? There's no flange here."

Well, yes, I did in fact know that. I saw it when I took the toilet off back when I had to change the wax seal myself. But I had kind of figuratively stuck my fingers in my ears about it - none of the other plumbers I had (to replace wax seals, and once, to extract a sample-sized bottle of facial moisturizer that fell in there WHILE the toilet was flushing) said anything about it, so I assumed it was minor.

But they seemed to think that the lack of a flange was what destroyed wax seals faster, and also, it did mean the toilet wobbled.

So I had them put one in, since they could. And since they were already out. Oh, I know it will be expensive, but whatever.

Also on Friday, in addition to fixing the vent stack, I'm having the guy correct a couple of drips. I have faucets that drip and I always say, "You're smart enough to fix those so they won't drip" but I never make the time to. So I might as well pay someone who knows how to do it - and who is already out on a service call - to fix it.

I remind myself that this is why I'm cheap in certain ways - I almost never eat meals out, I don't buy a lot of clothing - so that I have a little cushion of money so that when something bad happens, I don't have to worry about how I'm going to afford to have it fixed.