Or, The Joys of Plumbing.
The event du jour, as one might guess, centered today on the plumbing at 678 Sinclair Terrace, South Orange NJ. And specifically, the stopped-up kitchen sink.
Well, I tried Drano. Twice. And fooled myself into thinking that I'd done the trick. Which, of course, I hadn't.
So I called the reliable, if pricey, plumber John found through Maplewood On Line, and left a message, and didn't expect him to call back at 8 am. Using our landline number. Which is exactly what I suggested he do, in my message, forgetting that our landline phones are... finicky, I guess you could say. So, by the time we found a working hand set, the call was over.
Called him back. Waited, as per plumbing etiquette. And, mirabile -- a return call! An estimated arrival time of plumber and crew in about an hour. Which became two hours. Then three. The nature of the beast. But a clogged drain is a priority, I think.
Another call from the plumber, and again the landline phones refused to do the job for which they were designed. Ran around the house, one dead receiver in one hand, looking for another one that might work... How tedious.
Finally, a concrete contact, and a commitment for a repair. What a relief. And in under an hour, a free-flowing kitchen sink, with a new drain in place of the old one. Home improvement, I guess.
Oh, plus we fixed the outflow in John's bathtub.
And in between calls, and while I was waiting for Godot, or someone like him, I: watched a dull sci-fi movie, mostly with the sound off; did some more laundry; worked on a poem I'm trying to write, about a terrible event in Afghanistan, that ruined a close friend's only son; shopped for and bought a model human heart, to use for a Combat Paper project I'm ruminating about; ate half a giant pork burrito, brought home who knows how long ago; and spent far too much time on Facebook, searching, as always, for some miraculous, substantive, life-altering... something. Which all of us should realize is like standing under an apple tree in January, expecting ripe grapes to fall into our hands.
And all the while, to be honest, I'm feeling that familiar dull achiness in my gut, and am imagining that I'm one of those political miscreants in Henry VIII's time, who's been sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered -- and I'm at the part of the process where my belly is slit open a bit, and my innards are being slowly pulled out, inch by inch. Which would be so much worse, if I didn't feel, more or less, as though I'm dead already.
Oh, and the plumbing bill came to just over $400, for about an hour's work. Why couldn't I have dreamed, as a child, of becoming a plumber?
Now I'm watching Gerard Butler in a movie, where he kills lots of people. Seems apt.
© 2013 Walter Zimmerman
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