thedailywtf.com decided to join polite company, and declared that their use of “WTF” stands for Worse than Failure. This site is sort of a There I Fixed It for programmers.

What is Worse than Failure? Success, when it looks like this:

It’s not failure: it works. It’s just a horrifyingly bad solution. That’s 5 separate fittings screwed together with teflon tape, in order to replace one T-fitting that isn’t available in the exact size and specs I require. It also required at least 4 trips to the hardware store to get the actual parts I needed.

(Yes, I even asked for help at the store on two different occasions, and no one knew what the heck I was talking about, despite the fact that I bought the water filter at the very same store.)

The long story:

We got a new water filter, that came with a plastic T fitting to plumb it into the supply line between the faucet and the supply hose: 1/2″ pipe threads. The water filter stopped working. In the process of figuring out why, I screwed up the faucet. The replacement faucet has the supply hose built in, to prevent people like me from breaking it the way I did. But that means the water filter T fitting needs to have 3/8″ supply hose fittings instead of 1/2″ pipe threads now. Hilarity ensues.