Wisdom is in the Running Water

After a little over a week of no cold water in the sink and constantly replacing the absorbent towels in the cabinet, I broke down this morning and called a professional.
The last thing that leaks seems to be the faucet on the new water filter.
And the dishwasher.
And the icemaker on the other side of the kitchen which I swear I was nowhere near at any time.
The thing is (and it isn't as important to establish blame right now as it is to just resolve the current issues and move on with our lives) when I pulled out the instructions for the water filter and it wasn't exactly like the pipework under our sink, I should have stopped.
My father once told me that a person can fake being a doctor, they can fake being a lawyer, they can fake being a competent and concerned I.T. security professional, but one cannot fake plumbing.
I wish he'd told me this before I took tools to my pipes, but now I know. And you can't fake timing, either, apparently.
In discussing this with my father we briefly toyed with the idea of blaming the plumbing disaster on burglars. It certainly looks like the work was done by someone with no marketable skills who would turn to a life of crime.
To be fair, it looked a lot like that before I ever started working.
Here is something I learned:
You can drill into PVC pipe. The contents of that pipe, which have been washing out of the dishwasher for a number of years, are unpleasant. You can make a passable seal on that hole, too.
Be careful when applying the sealant, though, since when it drips down onto lower joints which were shaken loose during the drilling process there really seems to be no fixing that.
I'm going to meet an actual plumbing professional over my lunch break and I'm going to bear his entirely justified laughter at my expense.
I'm just glad he didn't come out on Memorial Day, since that would have made my expense an additional 250%, easy.