I couldn’t wait for the plumber to arrive.
Just for him, I’d cleaned out the cabinet under the kitchen sink, and put a bucket under the trap. I’d emptied the (dirty) dishwasher. I’d spread a towel on the floor, thinking that his knees — even more than mine — might appreciate the cushion. I’d left the cabinet door open, and I gestured at it and the sink when I led him into the kitchen. “There they are,” I said, as though he might might have expected more than one sink and drain in the kitchen.
He took in the scene, nodding vaguely at my tale of frustration and woe:
The tale extended back in time hours, days, weeks, to the dawn of time, and it involved gallons of Liquid Plum’r and first a 25-foot and then a 50-foot auger, or “plumber’s snake.” (Perhaps that was the creature which had defeated Adam in the Garden.) The tale involved a dishwasher frothy with gunk-dissolving chemicals, a dishwasher run through multiple (brief) rinses and drain-and-dry cycles. The tale involved mopping and sweeping and more mopping and it merited, by God, a little manly sympathy.
The plumber walked around the kitchen counter and pointed with his thumb to the sliding glass door to the deck.
“All right I use this door?”
“Uhhh… yeah, sure, no problem.” Like, I didn’t know — maybe he and his partner would need to… um… trace the line or something. I pictured the two of them criss-crossing the yard, with GPS units in their hands and pipe-clog-detecting electronic sounding gear strapped to their backs and heads. Plumbing had obviously embraced the 21st-century World of Tomorrow. I opened the door, showed them out, and sat at the kitchen counter to watch.
No plumber(s) for a minute or two. Maybe I’ll just run down the hall to use the bathroom for a few secs, I thought. On my way through the living room, I glanced out the picture window at the driveway. Yes. The two of them were getting their gear. Probably emptying the little van.
As I returned to the kitchen, I heard a metallic clatter and crash out on the deck. What the—?
It was an extension ladder, propped up against the wall outside the kitchen window. The assistant plumber even now was climbing it, in his hands an industrial version of the apparently puny one which I’d spent so much loving, thrashing, cursing time wielding over the last few days.
A pause, the world in suspended animation. From the kitchen ceiling, suddenly, the sound of diamond miners drilling through our roof.
I went out onto the deck. And there I saw the culprit.
That’s right: a rooftop vent, clogged with debris. There WAS no pipe clog. There was a roof clog.
Total cost: 35ish minutes (plus an entire vacation day from work), and $100.
(Wikipedia, that insufferable know-it-all, explains it for us.)
In Bulgaria a repairman came to look at my broken TV. When he plugged it in, it worked just fine.
I met my ex when we both worked for a plumbing company. Oh the stories the plumbers would tell :). Hey, maybe I can use that in a story!
marta: Just about every “computer person” I’ve ever known has had (and immensely enjoyed) the experience from the other end — walking into someone’s office where the computer has allegedly been misbehaving, blacking out, crashing and burning… only to find out that our mere presence seems to resolve the problem. I can’t even begin to tell you how satisfying this is.
Sarah: This is the second time we used this plumbing company. The first time around — a busted garbage disposal — The Missus was at home to meet him, and the Man Himself showed up. The visit concluded with a sort of clumsy pass at her. This time, when she called, he asked if she would be home when “someone” got there. She said she’d have to be at work but her husband would be home. Two other guys came by this time, not that that means anything of course.
hmmm- sounds like she should report the guy. Other women might have more trouble fending him off.
Sarah: But this is the Deep South, and The Missus is a Deep South native (as is the plumber in question). Apparently this is all just a day in the life, no harm no foul, etc.
And should The Missus peek in here, perhaps she might do a better, less mystified-Yankee explanation. Hmm???