Notice I didn't necessarily say overnight guest. It's best not to probe too deeply into what goes through my head sometimes:
"Well hi Bob, it's good to see you stranger! How you been? Would you like a cup of coffee or a bath or something?"
The ooze wouldn't leave though. That was the problem. It set up camp at the base of my drain and refused to budge.
Naturally, the first step would be to jiggle the drain lever thingy. It was jiggled. The ooze let out a mocking, sinister, laugh. I saw some screws and took them off. My tool set consists of some Philips screwdrivers, a pair of needle nose vice grips I found in a parking lot once, WD-40, and some packing tape. Not even duct tape. Packing tape. That tells you how seriously I take my tools. My nicest tools are a mint-condition ratchet set my parents bought me when I got my house in Ohio. And when I say parents I mean Dad. This ooze situation reminded me of many a Saturday afternoon around the house with my dad fetching tools. Here I could say "Could you get me the vice grips?" When I was a boy around the house though it would have had to have been far more specific. Something like "Hey boy, while you're sitting there resting, get me the blunt nose single sply quarter turn 45 degree upward angle alloyed vice grips"
When I returned it would be something like "The single slpy! You think I can take off this engine block with double sply vice grips? The biggest part of a project is having the right tools boy." I was referred to as "boy" or "the boy" until I was around 15 I think.
So I matched up the situation to my tools and took out some screws. Then I looked around. I sighed impatiently at the ooze to let it know it was now time to leave. When I stared banging on whatever was a couple inches below the drain I knew it was time to stop. My brother in law has a plumbing business, and I'm pretty sure I heard him say once at Christmas that everyones presents that year were financed by husbands who started banging on stuff. I used the last tool in my tool box and a tactic a friend of mine uses when he has house guests. I put a roll of toilet paper within view of the ooze.
"I'm glad to see you. I said to my guest. But when it's gone so are you"
1 week ago- The fatal flaw in my plan has become evident. Plumbing ooze does not defecate and therefore has no need for toilet paper. So now it evidently thinks it has an invitation to stay until the roll naturally decomposes over the course of the next few hundred years or so. I can't help but to think if only my vice grips were single sply the problem would be solved. As it is I come to grips with my need for professional help and can feel my penis shrink a bit as I call the plumber. The lady who answers the plumber's phone is very nice and has a sweet voice, exactly how I imagine the receptionist would sound at an impotence clinic. I swear she's ready to say "It happens to every guy eventually" as she leafs through the appointment book.
"I have a spot open for 8 AM" I wait for the list of later times I'm sure is to follow. None do. The thought I could easily live with just one bathroom floats through my mind. I take the 8AM appointment confident the plumber will arrive late.
Yesterday- I receive a request to get a picture of the plumbers crack while he's over.
Today, 8:01 AM- The phone wakes me from a dream in which my mother has just been chosen to be a contestant on a reality TV show. I think the show had something to do with cooking. I was hoping they would have her make lasagna, as I hadn't had mom's lasagna for years.
"This is Heather from Bob's plumbing!!!" were the words that snapped me out of my pasta fantasy. "They're on their way over!!" Her name wasn't really Heather but she totally sounded like one. Heathers have a distinctive sound and I suspected it was her middle name. I decided on a breakfast of black coffee.
8:03- Plumbers arrive before any caffeine is drinkable. The main plumber seems much too skinny to have a crack. The second is very soft spoken and seems like some sort of gentle giant. If I am to get a picture of a plumber's crack this day, he will have to be the one to supply it.
8:05- Plumbers are finished. "It was either gonna come easy or it was gonna break" The main plumber told me as I struggled with the coffee filter. I imagined how it went down. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way" he said to the ooze, then he showed it his plumbing license. The gentle giant then sat down next to the ooze and told it a story about his childhood that made the ooze realize this had all been just a ploy for attention. The gentle giant and the ooze shared a hug and the ooze went to the sewage treatment plant to face its fate like a man.
In reality the plumber said "I just loosened it up with a pair of vice grips. It's mostly about having the right tools."
I handed over a check and felt my penis shrink. I guess I'll take a bath now and think of the lie I'll tell my tech tomorrow when she asks how my day off was.
4 comments:
So how much did the less than 5 minutes of professional plumbing service cost? Was it about 5 bucks or so, like a pharmacist's time? (joke!)
95 bucks, and worth every penny when I tell people I did it myself....
It's never the easy way at my house, and just so you know, they won't step onto your property without a $75 charge. That's just to get them on your property. If they have to break out the vice grips you can be sure it's going to cost at least $100. You got of easy, Pussy.
Come hang out with me, dear. Not only do I have my very own tools, but I know how to use them and (most importantly) when to stop.
I can also bake a cherry pie and dress up like a character from "Mad Men", so your penis can regain its usual impressive dimensions.
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