Know your limitations

Being a homeowner there have been opportunities for me to do some plumbing work as part of routine maintenance as well as upgrading and improving the house. The first decade in the house I made futile attempts to do simple plumbing repairs with very poor results. Numerous trips to Channel or Rickel (years before Home Depot and Lowes) provided little help and there are many copper pipe connections in the house that are covered in epoxy to stop the one drop a minute leak that was the result of my work. In the years since then I have learned my limitations and have employed a plumber whenever there has been a need for plumbing work. There are exceptions to this however. Those occasions involved drain work and toilet repair, basically where there was no water pressure involved to produce a leak. But with the new compression fittings I even installed a faucet now and then. So, when our dishwasher died last week and we purchased a new one I removed the old one and saw that there would be one simple compression fitting in the installation of the new machine. That should be simple enough. No solder to sweat into joints. A simple compression fitting. Well it was delivered today at two o'clock, and after getting it all installed, leveled, wired up, and water supply connected, I turned on the water and ran a rinse cycle as directed by the instructions. And laying on the floor with a flashlight I saw it. The one drop a minute that has defined many of my plumbing jobs. I tightened the nut a bit more. Now the drip was maybe a minute and a half. Another quarter turn on the nut. Still a drip. So, what do I do now. Simple really. Turn off the water supply and call the plumber; which is exactly what I did. I left a message for him explaining my situation and now I wait for his return call. I became over confident and didn't listen to my own words....."Know your limitations."