extremely minor home improvement foulup #386

The old Hot and Cold handles in the tub were the ugly plastic kind like you might have on your sink, with fake-crystal knobs with a plastic "H" or "C" insert.

Got new ones, handsome brushed nickel look, old-fashioned, the lever kind where you have this somewhat flared handle sticking out.

With some fear and anxiety, unscrewed the old faucet and handles (water-go-things).

I had not thought about one thing:
When you have two lever type handles, you expect them to both swing towards the middle when you want to turn one the water (one clockwise and one counterclockwise.) This is NOT the same action as twisting your typical sink type knobs, which BOTH twist clockwise to turn on the water.

So now we have these levers that turn wrong, since they inherited the old valves, and are therefore both clockwise and you can't even twist them towards each other if you try.

I will never get over this. I cannot take out the old valves, buried inside the tub as they are, and our bathroom is now permanently eccentric in a way nobody will notice until they take a bath.

As Condoleeza Rice said, "There is no ... There is no way anyone could have foreseen this kind of problem."