Plumber's Crack

It's not what you think. The plumber actually had a little bit of a gut, but his pants and shirt covered everything quite nicely. The crack comes in when he goes out to his truck and smokes a bunch before coming in and giving me the final bill.

Allow me to backtrack a little bit.

Saturday night, Taylor was taking a shower, because Saturday is a special day, it's the day we get ready for Sunday . . . and all of a sudden we started hearing weird bubbling sounds in the toilets, and our shower filled with water. Bret seemed to think that was bad. So he put an "Out of Order" sign on the kids' bathroom door and proceeded to use the backyard for his personal toilet. Told the boys to do the same. I'm not sure what Taylor and I were supposed to do, but since we weren't about to go out to the bushes, I told her to just ignore the sign on the door and use as little TP as possible.

Sunday morning, Bret went out and put the fan sprayer on the hose, slung it over a tree branch, and we all got to traipse out there in our swimsuits at 7:00 a.m. and shower in ice water. That was fun.

Then we spent the morning at church, using the nice, clean, odor-free bathrooms as often as we could before we finally had to go home. Later in the afternoon I went over to a friend's house and used her bathroom, because I knew mine couldn't handle what I was about to do to it. These are the times you realize who your true friends are. If you can show up on a doorstep and ask to use the bathroom, you've got a real friend.

At 1:00 this afternoon, Bryan the Rescue Rooter guy showed up, not really looking too much like he enjoyed his job, believe it or not. (Prior to his arrival, Bret told me he'd be taking up our toilet, so that forced me to clean my bathroom and bedroom, two chores which were long overdue.) So Bryan spent an hour in the bathroom, and came out looking not a whole lot happier, which I didn't really appreciate, since I cleaned it up so nice for him. He said he brought up a lot of tree roots, and offered to send a camera down the sewer to view the damage for an extra $200. I said we'd just take our chances.

That's when he went out to his truck and smoked crack for a few minutes and came back in and drained our bank account. Do you think I should contact the authorities? I know they frown on that kind of drug usage, because I see them arrest people on our street for it all the time.

But now we can flush, drain, shower, wash dishes, do laundry, and all those other things the pioneers could never do in the comfort of their homes. So again, happy Pioneer Day! I'm gonna go wash something.