Not content with merely screwing up one minor job, I had to go back to the well of human despair for a second time today. One of my larger popup sprinkler heads was apparently stuck: spraying water in only a single direction rather than circulating back and forth in the 90 degree arc that it should.

Have you ever tried to figure out how these things work? They are truly diabolical in their construction. First of all, the gizmo is spring loaded so that it only pops up when water pressure is being applied. The manufacturer’s preferred method of examining the interior mechanism is to lever a screw driver under the lid to pull the mechanism up. Of course, it is spring loaded, so you can’t really let go of it, so now you’ve got one of your hands entirely committed for the rest of the operation.

Careful examination of the mechanism revealed that the sprinkler head existed in one of two states, separated from one another by a spring about the same strength as you might find in a ballpoint pen. When the sprinkler head hits its limit of travel, a small lever arm flips the sprinkler head into its opposite state and it reverses direction.

But mine didn’t seem to do that, for reasons which seemed inexplicable. Even though I powered it up, and withstood the watery blast of its malfunction in some vain attempt to figure if something minor had been jammed.

Oh well, think I. I’ll just replace the entire mechanism. Off to Orchard I go. The heads aren’t particularly cheap ($16.99) but what the heck.

Now comes the really fun part. Extracting the old one, and installing the new one. These sprinkler heads are roughly four inches in diameter, and are roughly cylindrical. They screw (without any kind of adhesive) into the underground plastic piping that forms my automatic sprinkler system. In principle, you merely have to dig it out, unscrew it, and rescrew the new one in.

But here’s where more diabolical design features conspire to promote profanity. First of all, the surface of the sprinkler isn’t smooth: they have a fair number of vertical notches along the outside. These, of course, conspire to actually increase friction, and make it very difficult to twist one of these things out. Add to that another clever design feature: a plug which comes out the side. This is for some poor saps who desided to feed their sprinkler heads from the side rather than from below. Who these people are, I don’t know, but I’d like to smack them for ruining it for the rest of them. My old sprinkler head (probably dating to the construction of the house fifteen years ago) is of course now surrounded by a network of inch thick roots coming from the nearby tree. Can’t really blame the tree: that’s where the water is. The side plug of course catches on every single one of them, which I proceed to cut, tug and swear at. I stripped out probably six individual pieces of root, varying in length from six inches to three feet. I also tore a good chunk of skin off my palm, and hurt the tips of three fingers. Each chunk of root removed allowed the old sprinkler to twist a little more, and after a half hour of excercise resembling opening an infinite row of mayonnaise jars, I managed to get the old one out.

Of course, now the fun really begins, because getting the new one backin is even more difficult. Dirt from the extraction of the previous one falls into the sprinkler mechanism and gums the threads, and of course, the same annoying side plug catches on everything. I haven’t yet completed this phase of the operation: I’m stopping for a diet coke and to think.

It’s just one of those days.