I am not a practical person.

Take my bathroom sink. Something somewhere in the system went "THUNK" one night and for the past three weeks or so the mixer tap hasn't been drawing cold water. Hot water, fine. All the other cold water in the biscuit, fine. This tap, no cold water.

And what with it being a "designer" thing installed by the bloke who sold me the house, of course it requires special parts to make it work. And special parts have special suppliers. High street they ain't, and knowing where to buy them is just the first problem. But I track them down eventually and explain what's happened.

"Sounds like you need to replace the cartridge," says the salesman during my first phone call. "Come by, and I'll pop the top of the tap and show you how to do it."

This is great news as I've been determined to resolve it myself. The purchase of parts and tools to finish the job, finding the stopcock, taking the tap to pieces and reassembling it, all with the minimum of professional advice and assistance.

Yet after my second visit in two days to the upitsownarse bathroom supplier, things are no further on.

The lack of manual and inadequate explanations provided by the shop staff ("You didn't tell me there were two grub screws" "Oh, yeah, right, sorry" or "So you're saying those shouldn't be lined up, but your colleague said they should be, which is it?" "Well they shouldn't be, I don't know") have left me frustrated, bleeding and still without cold water.

Trouble is, I have no aptitude and a similar amount of experience in rudimentary plumbing, and everyone else I talk to concerning the matter regards it as second nature, with a made up language ("Look down the spline and you should see it" "The what?"), an expectation that everyone else understands what they're talking about, and a deeply impatient, condescending manner towards anyone who dares ask a simple question.

Another two phone calls after my second visit stretch us all to the limit.

Saleman: "Sigh... It's really very easy."

Me: "With the greatest respect you've done this before, but I haven't, and I DON'T UNDERSTAND YOU!"

Salesman: "Well, we sell loads of them and nobody else has ever had a problem."

Yeah, well I fucking well am.

Three weeks of cleaning my teeth in the kitchen sink is as much as I'm willing to take. I'm grateful for running water in the rest of the place, but what use is designer chic if it doesn't bloody work.

And fuck pride, I've got a plumber coming in.

It may be pampered and an indictment of my abilities as a barely-functioning man, but molecules just don't work for me the way they do for other people.

And I'll feel so bloody smug if it's something other than the cartridge.