The plumber, whose name (I swear – I’m not making this up) is John, is sitting with Michael at the kitchen table when I get home from work.

Michael had already gotten a receipt. I know, from previous experiences, that this exchange usually takes place after the work is done. So, when John all too cheerily blurted out, “Hi there. Your toilet’s broken,” it was difficult not to say, “Gee, this is awkward – I thought you were the plumber.” Instead, I simply said, “Yeah, I was the one who called.” Then I put down the groceries I had brought in and went back out to the car for another load. It was on this trip out to the car that I noticed the toilet which, to my knowledge, had never lived in our garage before, but which was now sitting there proud as you please. If it had been a snake or a shark or even a lamb on Valium, it might have bitten me – that’s how close I was to it when I had walked by it the first time. My powers of observation are keen indeed.

Immediately humbled and sorry for wrongly thinking before that John might well be a moron, I grabbed more groceries from the trunk, and upon re-entering the kitchen, asked him, “So what’s up?”

John explained to me that he was busying himself tightening the thingamabobber on the toilet which used to reside in the master bath when the tank cracked right down the side.

Having noticed that my eyes were none too sharp and that he was, in all likelihood, dealing with a moron, he pointed in the direction of the toilet in question to better illustrate his meaning.

So, that evening, after John had gone on his merry way, we made a family outing to Lowe’s and bought a brand- spanking-new toilet, which John would install for us the very next day. Michael said that from now on when we had plumbing jobs, John wanted us to call him directly instead of phoning the company.

No doubt, Michael is a plumber’s wet-dream. So, whenever I think about that conversation taking place, I can’t help but visualize Michael and John the Plumber happily running toward each other over a field of flowers – Michael with a wad of money in hand and John with his plunger.

The next day, John made good on his word. He fixed the toilet at a reasonable rate, and finished the job before I got home from work. He also told Michael a story, which, in my opinion, is as good a story as you’ll ever hear. If it’s not true, I don’t care, because the way I see it, I’m getting in on the ground floor of what’s sure to be an urban legend.

A Plumber’s Tale

John is using a snake to clear a clog in a toilet drain for a guy. They guy is hanging out with him and watching him work. John keeps pulling condoms one by one out of the drain pipe. After watching John pull about thirty of them out of there, the guy asks, “So, what are those things you keep finding?” John answers back, “Well, they’re condoms, sir.” The guy looks stunned, goes suddenly pale, and tells John that he’s had a vasectomy for fifteen years.

Not surprisingly, he also murmurs something about divorce.

My first instinct when Michael told me that story was to be pissed off.

See, I’ve had dealings with John in the past and he never got chummy enough with me to tell me any cool plumber stories. Nor, for that matter, had he ever offered to do any work for me on the “down low.” “What”, I thought, “is that about? Am I not good enough to tell your stories to, Plumber Man?”

Then it occurred to me what must’ve happened.

See, Michael doesn’t talk to people. Sometimes, if they’re lucky, he’ll answer them. But, he never attempts to make small talk. He’s not a social person.

Socially, Michael tends to totter between being either incredibly rude or shy to the point of dysfunction… Let’s just say, he can make people uncomfortable.

Let’s also say, he’s the type of person who will stare at you while you fix his toilet.

While we’re saying those things, we might also say that Nazis confessed to countless atrocities under only slightly less pressure than poor John the plumber was under the day he told that story to Michael. In fact, I’ve often thought that if we could force suspected terrorists to hang out alone with my husband for a couple of hours, the bastards would talk. Oh, they’d talk alright.

So, now you understand (as I do) that John the plumber doesn’t like Michael better than he does me. He doesn’t. I’m not jealous. There’s no need to be. Shut up. You don’t know him at all. I’m outta here.

Has anybody been doing anything more interesting than watching poker tournaments on television? I’d be willing to bet you have. In fact, I’m pushing in all my chips on that one.

Me? Well, when I’m not busy attempting to help my daughter with her homework, I’m watching some sort of poker show.

Apparently, poker is my new religion. I’ve become quite evangelistic about it. I frighten people with my enthusiasm. I smile brightly and ask strangers, “Have you found Texas Hold ‘Em? Do you have poker in your life, my child?” Two months ago, I was the same way about knitting. I still knit sometimes while I watch poker shows. At those moments, I am as close to Nirvana as ever I shall be.

But enough about poker. Let’s talk about toilets.

You may recall from some of my previous posts that my husband, Michael, is no plumber. That may be the understatement of the year. I’m well aware that we’ve got a couple more months before the end of the year, but let’s keep that statement in mind anyway. It’s gonna be a tough one to beat.

Anyhoo, we have two toilets upstairs and one downstairs. The one in the hall bathroom had been broken for six months, but it was still usable. The problem was that once you flushed it, it would take almost half an hour for the tank to refill. Inconvenient, yes, but we lived with it. Then, this past Wednesday night, the toilet in the bath that’s off the master bedroom broke. It wouldn’t stop running, and Michael had to shut the water off to it. Fine.

So, the next day, Michael decides to fix the one in the hall. What could go wrong?

Ed. note: If this blog were a suspense thriller type movie, you’d hear eerie music as soon as I posed that question.

So, he and Charlotte head upstairs. She’s going to help him fix the toilet. They are both overly confident and cheerful.

Cue more eerie music.

Shortly thereafter, Charlotte comes back downstairs. “Mom, do we have any plastic cups?” Barely resisting the urge to scream and run out the door, I shakily reply, “Yes.” I ask no questions.

I hand her the cups and she is gone again up the stairs.

Five minutes later, she is back. “Mom? Do we have a bucket?”

Once more I resign myself to live in complete denial of whatever is going on in that bathroom, and I quickly locate a bucket for her. This time, however, I do quietly ask, “Is everything OK?”

As soon as the query is spoken, I regret having asked it. I pray for vagueness in her response and am relieved when she says only, “Sure Mom. It’s gonna be fine.”

Ten minutes later, they are both back downstairs. Michael says, “Congratulations! Now that toilet is completely broken. We’re calling a plumber.”

So, I call a plumber.

But, the story doesn’t end there.

If you’ll come back around tomorrow, I’ll post the conclusion to this little installment along with an intriguing tale that the plumber swears is true.

PS – Sorry I haven’t been writing lately or keeping up with what’s going on with everyone else. I’ve just been busy with other things, and in my spare time, I’ve wanted to do nothing that requires any effort whatsoever. Even if I did feel like writing, I had nothing to write about. I’ve had a splinter in my foot for about three months. I could’ve written about that, I suppose, but aren’t splinters infinitely more interesting when they are stuck in your elbow or something? I always thought so. Anyhow, hope all is well with everybody.

Male Emperor Penguins must walk 70 miles back to the ocean to feed after going 120 days without food. The female penguins don’t have it a lot better. They walk that same distance right after giving birth. Both the males and females endure temperatures of eighty degrees below zero.

Yes, I learned something from seeing “March of the Penguins.” I learned that penguins are total bad-asses. In honor of that fact, I coined the phrase, “He’s no penguin” as a way of describing someone who lacks endurance or whines a lot in difficult situations. Feel free to use this phrase at will or expand upon it as you see fit. The Emperor Penguin is the coolest non-flying bird around. Much cooler than the Emu or the Double-Wattled Cassowary. Get outta here with that stupid Cassowary. Penguins rock!

By the way, I have been whining and be-moaning my sore back for three days. When I’m not crying about that, I’m complaining that it’s too hot outside or that my braces hurt. I, dear friends, am no penguin.

In a rare moment of good taste, I managed somehow to blacklist myself from commenting on my own website. The tech-support also known as my dear husband, sighed, “Only you could get banned from your own site.” It might seem that he’d be annoyed with me, but truth be told, he finds my incompetence to be cute and girlish. Moreover, he finds all the weird shit I do to screw up the website both mysterious and strangely alluring. Intrigue is what our marriage is all about. I like to keep him guessing all the time. “What the hell did you do to your site?”

“I don’t know. Take a guess.” See how it works? He loves it.

And that’s all I have to say about that.

Oh, I do have one more thing to share with you. It’s loosely related, but not related enough for me to make a smooth literary transition into it. Hence the colon, which should be your signal that I’ve given up: Anytime you see the colon, I have given up: Here I go again:

Have you ever lost something really important? You look through your pockets. Nothing. You pour out your purse. Nada. You panic. You freak out a little. You imagine repercussions. You comfort yourself by saying things to yourself like, “Well, you know they say Einstein was absent-minded.” Then you answer yourself back with, “Yeah, but Einstein wrote that theory of relativity. How does your life stack up next to that? Uh-huh. I thought that would shut you up. So, where were we? Ah, I remember now, we were talking about you being a dumbass.” You beat yourself up a bit more after that for good measure. Then, the next day, you find out you didn’t lose the thing you thought you lost, because you had never even been given it in the first place? Meaning not only that you are living in your own little world but that the alternate universe you’ve created is so painfully mundane that you have to lose a key to shake things up a bit. How sad is that shit?

So, let’s just say, this happened to someone close to me – a close friend, may haps. Would you say this person needed electroshock therapy or ginkgo biloba, or both?

Well, we just got back from Cedar Point. A couple of days ago. I know, I know, I’m slow to blog, but I found myself ass-deep in laundry when I got back and also had to catch up on a lot of yardwork and grocery shopping and watching television. Not necessarily in that order.

We stayed at a place called Castaway Bay. They have an indoor water park. Big hot tub, wave pool, water slides — and all of it nestled safely indoors so that I could better maintain that ghostly palor my husband so adores. The only downside to this particular hotel was the maid service we got, or more accurately, didn’t get. Even when I left a friendly note requesting a linen change, the maid didn’t change the sheets. Two notes and three days later, I grabbed some clean linens off a service cart and changed them myself. The next day when the maid came in to half-assedly clean and to NOT change the sheets, she left the dirty ones on the floor, assuming, I guess, that they belonged to us. Heh, heh, heh.

Overall, the trip was good. Percentage wise, it would round out like this:

33% of the trip was spent sleeping (on questionably clean linens).

1% percent was spent with me wondering aloud exactly why that particular maid hated me and what I had ever done to her.

12% of the trip was spent driving to and from Ohio.

24% of the trip was spent swimming or relaxing in the indoor water park.

12% of the trip was spent eating.

17% was spent riding some mind-blowing coasters.

That’s only 99%. The other one percent is time we all spent trying to grasp why such a relatively small town had such an endless supply of pizza. It would be an understatement to say they like their pizza in Sandusky, Ohio.

Pizza was readily available in the hotel from three different sources. One of the two Mexican restaurants we visited had a pizza section on the menu. Six different pizza choices on a Mexican food menu. The “German” restaurant that was actually in the park had pizza. Shitting you, I am not. We didn’t actually go in there; they advertised it proudly on the sign. Maybe they had Wiederschnitzel pizza. I dunno. Anyway, I can’t even tell you how many Italian eateries and pizza parlors we saw during our stay. Basically, if you throw a stone in Sandusky, you’re gonna hit one of three things: a pizza joint, a roller-coaster, or another pizza place. Did I mention that you can get pizza there? ‘Cause you so totally can!!!

PS – The Top Thrill dragster was awe inspiring. Many bugs were harmed. I found them all on my white shirt after the ride was over. The front car is good fun ’cause ain’t nothing blocking your view of the 420 feet below you as you topple over the the arch at 120 mph., but maybe wear a garbage bag over your clothing. Wearing bug goggles and a bra on your head are, as always, optional.

PPS – The indoor water park made my kid VERY happy. We’ve decided that she’s basically a ninety pound fish of some sort. I don’t know what kind. What kind of fish lives on chicken nuggets and spaghetti and listens incessantly to annoying hip-hop and rap music?

Have you ever been behind one of those people who consistently drive 10-20 mph under the speed limit and wondered to yourself, “How does this person ever get anywhere?” Sure you have – ’cause you’re all philosophical like that.

I am too. I get especially philosophical when I’m rushing somewhere and I’m behind two people who not only drive slowly but insist on driving side by side like their frickin’ cars just got engaged to be married. What’s more, I have a theory about this very subject. It’s a little sketchy, but bear with me, I just might be onto something. Even the crackiest of crackpots is right every now and then.

I’ve thought about this long and hard and the best I can come up with is that maybe they really don’t get anywhere. Ever. They spend their lives in their cars, stuck in a self-perpetuated loop between one destination and another.

Diary of a Slow-Assed Driver (Spoken into a tape recorder.)

Wednesday, July 13, 2005
6:00 a.m. – Still on the road. I’m only ten miles away from work. I’m hoping I can get there today if I hurry. Uh-oh. There’s a green light. Better slow down.

3:00 p.m. – Stopped for a quick bite and for gasoline. It’s a good thing the wife keeps paying the credit card bills or I’d be dead on the highway by now. Still not at work. Only five miles to go.

6:30 p.m. – Got to work late again. It’s closed. Going home.

5:30 a.m. – I can see my house. But, shit! It’s five thirty. I gotta get to work. I can’t be late today, since I didn’t show up yesterday. Or the day before. Or the day before that. Nope. Better keep driving. I’ll just call Helen and the kids later and explain that I’m fine….

Disclaimer: The previous account was fictional. However, any resemblance to persons living or dead is completely intentional and not purely coincidental in the least. These people are out there. Furthermore, they need to get out of the way.