plumbing is of the devil

okay, this is one of the more random entries I've ever written, but stay with me. For in spite of some stream of consciousness, and excessive prose, all will be made clear as you step into my story, my life this one morning.

You see, it all started last night. Last night. The night before Tile Glazer man came over. For several days I've been re-grouting the upstairs bathroom wall tile. Yesterday I finished, and then jumped into pulling out all of the caulk around the tub. Sarah shared in the decaulkification, which made it go all the quicker (thanks, honey). Then we had to part ways. She, to take the kids to Talent Show rehearsal (a must-do for anyone with a yearning for the psychotic), and I, to clean up said decaulkification, and then go to a 4 year old's birthday party (hey, it's free pizza).

After we all got home (Sarah did eventually get out of the rehearsal, and bring our kids over to catch the last moments of said party), we worked on getting the kids to bed, and taking out the water tank for the toidy, and removing the sink and vanity (this last piece had only been installed last year, with the help of my friend, Mike, who saved Sarah and me boatloads of cash on marital counseling). Of course what I didn't realize until we were face to face with the sink and vanity was that we had to shut off the water the old fashioned way - no, this particular sink (and the tub in the same bathroom) does not have its own happy little shut off valve. This was Plumbing disaster waiting to happen.

It all began after we had finished removing everything that needed removing. Sarah decided to gerry-rig a rubegoldberg "cap" for the "hot" line and the "cold" line. I was ... skeptical. But she had me turn the water on, and beyond dripping a little, she felt confident it would hold long enough in the morning so as to allow the kiddies and me to use the facilities like normal Americans. Aaahhhhhh, if only.

The next morning, after sleeping like crapola, and waking up with a head-ache, I turned on the water and roused the girls to use the basement bathroom with all speed and alacrity. They did so. My son, however, refused to get out of bed due to a case of not wanting to get out of bed. As I was coming up the steps to check on his condition (remember, timing is everything), I came within sight of the girls standing in the bathroom, and then it happened. A sudden explosion as the hot water made short work of Sarah's gerry-rigged rubegoldberg "cap" (please notice that for the second time, I've put cap in quotation marks). The contraption shot off into space, bouncing off the ceiling and landing in the tub. But that was nothing compared to the angry tsunami like pressure of the hot water spraying like Old Faithful on steroids all over the bathroom. I screamed at the girls to grab the towel that was on the floor, and throw it over the hot water line so as to at least keep it from spraying all over creation (which at this point was seemingly as big as our upstairs bathroom). In the time that it took for me to run like Steve Austin down to the basement, turn off the water line into the house, and back again, I was huffing and puffing, feeling not-so-conciliar feelings toward the love of my life. But the damage was done. I asked the kids to call their mother and tell her she should never think of going into business as a plumber.

Oh my goodness. There was water all over the bathroom floor. There was so much water on the floor I pulled almost every freakin' towel off the bathroom closet shower towel shelf, and threw them on the floor. A Zamboni would've been nice about then. Or a power vac. But I had neither, so the ten towels had to serve the purpose. After sopping up all of the water, I realized there was no such thing as an effective gerry-rigged rubegoldberg for this particular situation. I'm not sure Sarah has come to the same conclusion, however. But I had a solution all figured out.

As I envisioned it, I would drop the girls off at school, and stop at Mapes (yeah to the almighty Mapes hardware store extraordinaire), and pick up some sort of water line cap for each of the lines before dropping my son at his school. Simple plan, oui? Not so. Why, you ask dear reader? Because plumbing is of the devil.

I went into Mapes all confident that I knew what I needed. I just needed to be pointed in the right direction. And there, lo and behold, in the plumbing aisle was Frank, though I must admit I didn't take the time to look at his name badge - I was too self-important and in a hurry (after all, Tile Glazer man was coming any moment). Frank showed me what I was looking for. I had, after-all, measured out the openings on the water lines before I left (this should have been my first warning), and figured they were about half an inch. Why I didn't take Frank home with me is beyond me. But I got home and just as I got to the top of the stairs to try on said caps, Tile Glazer man arrived. After greeting him and making him feel at home, I knelt down to try the half inch caps.

Should I have been surprised when they didn't fit? After all, it had only been an hour and a half earlier that I had experienced my own little version of the Titanic. How I could have even begun to believe that this was going to end as nicely as one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books? Well, after a little gasp of disbelief, I told Tile Glazer man I was off to the Mapes to exchange the half inch galvinized cap for more obvious solution of the quarter inch sized cap. Tile Glazer man is laid back if he's nothing else; which, in that moment of frustration, I appreciated. He must be from California, or some place like that. He was cool with my plan in process.

I went to Mapes, exchanged my half inch caps for quarter inch caps, and with the kindness of Cookie the Mapes register operator, confidently headed home to both encourage and impress Tile Glazer man that I was not a complete plumbing idiot. Hhhmmmmm. But as I tried to fit the quarter inch galvinized cap onto the hot water line, I realized, to quote Jesus, "This kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer." I ... thought I had prayed, but perhaps not enough, not long enough even. Perhaps this one one could only be attached with much prayer and fasting. Well, I was hungry, but I didn't eat, just in case I was onto something. And then I informed Tile Glazer man that I was headed over to Mapes AGAIN. Again, Tile Glazer man was appreciative of personally knowing my schedule, and promised that this would not hold him up as he prepped the tiles and tub for his re-glazing voodoo magic.

When Cookie the Mapes register operator saw me the third time she gave me the look. Because minors may read this entry, I shall not go into detail if you don't know what I mean by "the look". But needless to say, I exchanged the quarter inch caps for the three-eighths inch caps. After-all, if they weren't quarter inch galvinized caps, they must be three-eighths inch galvinized caps. Once again confidence was brimming from me like the sun on a spring morning. Cookie didn't look so confident. I explained to her that the third time's the charm. She noted back to me that three strikes and your out. Thanks, Cookie. Thanks, a lot.

Three-eighths inch caps must be the solution. Must be. But as I tried to screw the first one on to the hot water line, my face must have possessed a look of incredulousness. Tile Glazer man was, however, very understanding and not at all plussed (unlike me). I told him I was about to call a plumber; either that, or an arsonist. I was near tears. Why does God do this to me, I asked myself as I haggardly walked out to my minivan for yet my fourth trip to Mapes Hardware that morning (within an hour, I think). I was afraid to look Cookie the Mapes register operator in the face one more time. But I did.

When she saw me come in there was dead silence. Kind of like that moment before a gun fight in one of Zefferelli's spaghetti westerns, where Lee Van Cleef and Clint Eastwood are about to have their show down. But unlike that scenario, I asked Cookie for help; "who do I talk to?", asked I. She said, go talk to Frank or Mike. So I walked down the main aisle, looking down the side aisles for anyone who looked like they had more sense than the poor guy who mixes paint for Mapes - a nice guy, but someone who probably knows less about plumbing than I do. I found Frank, the guy who helped me the first time find the half inch galvinized caps, who, by the way, I didn't know was Frank. But when I saw him, I said, "excuse me", and he turned, I saw his name tag said, "Frank", and I felt the first moment of peace I'd been yearning for all this morning.

Frank recognized me from my first sortie into plumbing hell. I told him my story, my drama, my pain. I described for Frank why, despite my prayers and best efforts, nothing but a growing sense of hatred for plumbing was developing in me. He understood. Frank must've been a plumber, but had the good sense to get out of it and get into selling stuff to amatuer and novice plumbing idiots like myself. In the least, he could make some money, and get a laugh out of such stories as I had shared with him. I should have talked to Frank at the beginning. I should have asked Frank if I could buy him lunch if he would go home with me after my first visit, so he could look at my water lines and diagnose the cure immediately. But I didn't, so Frank and I had our chat on my fourth visit to Mapes hardware; a very nice and helpful place, I might say.

Well, to make a long story just a little longer, Frank figured that I must have an entirely different beast by the horns than one that takes a galvinized cap; a beast most of you call plumbing - I now call it, Satan. He called it a "compression" fitting. And he found a compression cap, and showed it to me. When I saw how thin the rings were, I realized I had been the victim of plumbing hell all morning. Frank then detoured our conversation so as to give me a lecture on why every source of H2O should have its own shut off valve (I appreciated Frank's help on the compression valve, but wasn't too interested in the how-to's of doing the shut-off valves myself). I asked Frank to pull me down the half inch and the three-eighths inch compression caps - at least thinking that if one didn't fit, maybe the other would, reducing my chances of showing up for Cookie's glare and Frank's next lecture. Cookie was, how should we say, delighted to see me again, but for some reason she let Carol, the other Mapes register operator on duty that morning handle my latest return and purchase.

Cookie told me that she didn't want to see me in Mapes for at least another hour. I told her ... well, I told her if this didn't work I was going to call a plumber and a psychologist. I headed home, praying. Asking God why He put me through all of this. I figured it was because I needed to talk to Frank, and maybe the first conversation I had with Frank, whom I didn't know was Frank at the time, was not long enough. But I got back home, and found Tile Glazer man hard at work, pouring some noxious cleaning liquid here and there to help clean the tile surfaces so his tile re-glazing voodoo magic would work even better. At this point, even he was curious to see if my fourth trip would lead to some positive fruition or some sort of psychic break on my part.

My hand reached into the bag, pulling out the three-eighths inch compression cap. I felt good about that, opened it, and VOILA!!! It took. It grabbed. Houston, we no longer have a problem!!! I took out the second one, and, woo hoo, it wasn't a fluke! The second three-eighths inch compression cap was an equal success. God bless, Frank! At this point, I turned to Tile Glazer man. He shared in my happiness and joy, if only for a moment. I then said something to him that I realize in retrospect might have both frightened him and made him question the wisdom of his coming to my home on this particular sunny spring day. I said to Tile Glazer man, "Do you know how to scream really loud?" He looked at me, and answered me with the obvious question, "why?". I had wanted to say, "because I'm going to kill you now." But I didn't think he'd find that as funny as I would. But I relieved his growing apprehension when I told him that I was going to run down to the basement like Steve Austin and turn on the water into the rest of the house. If the three-eighths inch compression caps didn't do the job, he was to scream loudly so as to allow me to hear of said disaster in the making, and hopefully shut off the water before Tile Glazer man had his own Titanic experience.

The long and the short of it is that I turned on the water, heard no screaming from Tile Glazer man, and after waiting momentarily for any time delay satellite problems between the second floor and the basement, I ran upstairs, again, Steve Austin-style, and found to my ongoing delight, the three-eighths inch compression caps were doing the job, just like Frank said they would.

This blog posting is a result of the phone conversation I had with Sarah, my dearly beloved bride o' my youth, whose belly-ripping laughter at the description of my morning with Tile Glazer man, Cookie, and Frank encouraged me as worth putting down in this blog. I hope you feel that this entirely elongated story of my plumbing hell was worth your time. It was not worth mine.

Let me know what you think.