The Skeeter Daddle Diaries

My shack’s sink has been plugged up for a couple of years and no amount of Draino or reaming with a snake or the power of prayer has opened up that damn drain. I checked the Building Codes for just running the grey water into a bucket beneath a pipe that exits the bathroom in the back and I didn’t see anything to preclude that option. Course, I didn’t look too hard. And here at the outskirts of Rome’s Reach, I figure that’s close enough.

A buddy visited recently and noticed our new kitchen sink up at the hacienda which, since he’d had a vicious encounter with the gods of plumbing, caused him to ask if I’d installed the thing myself. He obviously has forgotten he ever met me in an earlier life. ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Only took two or three days, about par for me and my skill set. Why do you ask?’ Seems he’d had a leaky drain pipe under his sink and so, being a male of the species, decided to, you know, take a few minutes and fix that drip. Ho ho. Ha ha. Whee hoo, now here’s a fellow inmate who hasn’t really familiarized himself with the Laws of Plumbing. He thinks, innocently enough, naively enough, that plumbing must be fairly straightforward. Simple even. The Gods of Plumbing love us guys, so trusting, so completely unaware, such easy pickings. We are naught but toys in their cruel and capricious hands.

How did that drip repair turn out? I asked and waited for a long and terrible saga of busted pipes, spewing water, multiple trips to the hardware store or the emergency room or both. “Oh’, he said nonchalantly. ‘I tried straightening out the drain pipe where it was a bit crooked and before you know it, I broke the thing off in the wall where it was impossible to reach.’ So what did you do? I asked, still expecting a variation on my own typical plumbing horror story. ‘I ran into a plumber and I had him finish the job.’

This is probably the correct and proper ending for these stories. Hire a pro. Get a real job and pay the money. Forget your stupid pride, admit defeat and move on. This, I will tell you one more time, is NOT the South End Way. Certainly it is not MY way. I do not bow down to the sadism of plumbing deities. Sure, I bleed, I weep, I throw myself down on the sink floorboards and wail, I break tools, I break pipes, I break my back. Of course I want to quit. Of course it’s the only logical alternative. So what? If that were the Point, I’d move back to the city, buy a wardrobe and a tie to match, interview for real employment and join the mainstream.

I … am … not … going … back … to … that … America. Not even when Trump makes it great again. And no rusted pipe, corroded drain, busted waterline or anything else the Plumbing Gods can throw in my way will make me do it. No sir! Not even if I slowly have to devolve toward a shack with only cold water from a dripping faucet and a drainpipe into a hole in the ground. Not even if I end up back with my old outhouse behind the shop. There are things far worse than outdoor toilets, trust me.

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