Bugging Out!

Remember this?

Well, it happened again.

The water heater we bought yesterday doesn't work.

There was, of course, no way we could know this until the Kid spent nine hours on a Saturday taking the temporary electric one out and installing the new one and hooking up the gas.

So now -- da da-da daaaa -- we have no hot water.

I had to get up at the crack-o-dawn this morning (because, after receiving this news last night, I had too many beers to do it then) and convince the surly plumbing guy at Home Despot that he had to give me a free replacement for the faulty part, because there was no way I was paying the plumber to take the water heater out so I could return it for a working one, and then paying him to put it in again. Which the Kid would probably not have charged us extra for, but that wouldn't be right.

Surly Plumbing Man at first gave me all kinds of hairy eyeballs. Said he didn't understand what part we needed -- which the Kid had written down quite clearly. Said he didn't really carry parts. Quizzed me on what, exactly, wasn't working with the thing -- I played Girl (shrug and say "I'm just delivering the note. Where am I, anyway?").

Finally he took my note and went to check, leaving me standing there fighting the urge to peel all the stickers off the counter out of sheer, twenty-minutes-at-the-crack-o-dawn-with-nothing-to-do boredom. He came back and handed me this little tube -- no price tag on it, but it doesn't look like it could cost more than five bucks.

For this, he's giving me the hairy eyeball? Does he think I run this scam at Home Despots all up and down the eastern seaboard? Does he think if he searched Chuck (TFT) he'd find thousands upon thousands of these little tubes?

Anyway so we called the Kid and told him the part he needs is on the kitchen table (it's called a thermocouple, by the way -- or at least I hope it is, because that's what I got) and he should let himself in the back door whenever he likes. We feel bad about making him come over on a Sunday morning, but I really am going to need to shower before I go to work tomorrow, and the dishes are starting to pile up.

And now I gotta go, because this just flew by my head and I'm kind of freaking out:




It's a cicada, and I've no idea how it got in my office...

BOY Does The Kid Stay In The Picture!

First, Johnny and I fought about whether we ought to start lining up another plumber just in case.

Then the Kid called (this was at 2:30). Said he was okay, and could he come over now?

So then Johnny and I fought about whether or not it was a good idea to give him his 50% deposit on a Friday afternoon when he'd called in sick that morning and wouldn't be here in time to start the job. And why was he coming over right now anyway?

"To show us the proposal, talk to us about it, and get us to sign off on it," says Johnny. "It's what any good contractor does."

Sorry. Maybe I'd've know that if I'd ever hired one.

Still, I reserved judgment. But the Kid showed up. With a written proposal. He'll start tomorrow. Saturday. For about a thousand dollars less than we discussed.

Well, actually, it's the same price as we discussed, but it turns out to include the cost of the chimney liner and other materials -- pipes and things -- which we thought we were paying for ourselves. The $3500 price I posted the other day was my own estimate, adding on the costs of those things to the price he gave us, which we thought was just for labor.

I'm actually too embarassed to tell you the actual price -- if you know me, you know I'll probably get over that eventually -- but for now I will say this: Johnny and I just had a brief discussion about whether or not we were taking advantage of the Kid. We were gearing up to fight about it, but decided to let it go.

In the meantime, I've begun digging a spider-hole in the basement to throw the Kid in when he's done.

It puts the pipe wrench in the basket...

The Kid Goes To The Hospital

You didn't think this ordeal could possibly be over, did you?

I just got home from work. Johnny's here, because the new job doesn't kick in until next week. I'd left him at 8:30 with the first-half, up-front payment for the Kid, credit card instructions for Home Depot.

When I pulled up in front and saw no plumber-car here, I thought perhaps the two of them were shopping. But when Johnny met me at the door, my heart just sank.

"No plumber?" I asked him trepidatiously.

"He went to the emergency room."

I. Uh. You're kidding. I just. I feel like I've been botoxed: I can't move my face.

Okay, Erin, let's try to work up a modicum of concern for the Kid:

"Is he okay?"

"Yeah. His back. Did something. He called. At least he had the courtesy to call."

"He called from the emergency room?"

"Yes. No. I don't know where he was. He sounded rough, though, like he was really hurting."

"Well, I guess we have to start again, then. Look for plumber #12."

"Why?"

"Well, honey, if it's his back..."

"He said he really wants to do the job..."

I'm sure he does. And I really want to sneeze without crying. But sometimes a wonky back just gets the final word.

We'll see. We'll give him the weekend to let us know what's going on, and if we don't hear by Monday we'll go back to the board.

In the meantime, don't I owe somebody a verse or two...?

Positraction

Gary wrote:
What exactly is wrong with your sink? At this rate you could have bought a basic plumbing book for $19.99 and some supplies and been half done for less than $300.00. I'm no skilled plumber (trust me) but I know the going rate for a master plumber is around $30 an hour and I don't know of many jobs that take 20 hours unless it involves a re-plumbing of the entire house. A sewer line replacement will cost you $3000 but much of that is sucked up in equipment rental. Cost of materials is generally one third the cost of labor. What is so wrong that a plumber doesn't want to do the job? You might find that it is too small and they don't want to be bothered.

Hey Gary, love your "This Old Crack House" blog. You must be new to mine, though. Maybe I should nutshell this, for others of you who might be new to the saga of the AssVac...

We're not just fixing a leaky faucet, here. And -- although we're plenty stupid -- we're not so stupid as to entertain estimates of six thousand dollars for a job that's too small to be bothered. This has been going on since April, and I'd like to think that if it were that simple we'd be much more than half done by now. Like, almost three-quarters!

We're converting from oil to gas heat. We were thinking about it anyway, because oil is yucky, and when our furnace blew up last spring we decided that was a good indication it was time.

Here in Massachusetts, anyway, this job requires a licensed plumber (and even if it didn't, I'm not the girl you want playing with gas on the say-so of an instruction booklet). The cost of the job includes a furnace, hot water heater, and a chimney liner (any one of which will by itself cost well over $300), plus sundry other materiel. All together at least twice the cost of labor -- which will be at least two days for at least two guys.

And if you can get a licensed plumber in Massachusetts for thirty bucks an hour, I say put him on retainer or keep him tied up in your basement.

Anyway, I'm happy to report the Kid's staying in the picture.

$3500.

We have ourselves a plumber!


CONTEST ALERT:
Anybody want to explain the title of this post -- why I chose it, I mean? (For newbies: that means if you get it right I'll write a poem with your name in it and post it on the blog. You can even name the format. Come on, play!)

The Kid's Back In The Picture

He just called -- we were in the yard, so we didn't answer -- but he apologized for calling so late and left a number and said he had a price for us.

So let's call him back and see what it is...

The Kid's Out Of The Picture.

Well, maybe not, but he hasn't called yet. He promised he'd call today with a price, so he's running out of time.

In the meantime, we're on to Plumber #11. This guy says he'll do it for $300/day, plus $150/day for his helper (which will be Andy, who we know and trust and everything), plus material. Says it will be done in two days.

Taking materials into account, I'm guessing that sounds like around $3000. Even if you add an extra day for just-in-case, it's still better than Mr. $6000 -- who also said two days.

But #11 hasn't even looked at the job yet, and there's got to be some reason why everybody who looks at the job never comes back or calls again...

Oh yeah and PS -- Plumber # -- um, 7, I think -- is telling us again that he'll be out here tomorrow. Anybody wanna place a bet?

Have You Rehabilitated Yourself?

So I was thinking (I've been doing a lot of lying awake at night, lately), and I thought of two things:

1. Plumber #10 (I think from now on I'll call him Kid) did not drive himself here. I didn't realize it until he was leaving, but there was a big scary guy in the drivers seat waiting for him the whole time.

2. He said he hadn't done this kind of job "in a while" but he didn't say why not.

And then of course there is the spiderweb...

I wonder if he's fresh out of prison. I wonder what kind of crime a person could commit that they'd take away his driver's license but let him keep his plumbing one.

Maybe... littering?

I Think I Love You!

So what am I so afraid of?

Well, he has a spider web tattoo on his right elbow for one thing...

But otherwise I liked him. Johnny liked him. He was nice and he needs the work, and he thinks Sparky is dirty and creepy, just like we do.

What the hell: we all have embarassing tattoos we still sport proudly, don't we? Just some of us were smart enough to put them in places the general public will never see.

He's going to call us with a price tomorrow. He's going to let us buy what material we can for ourselves, so we won't be paying markup.

Something tells me he'll come in under six thousand dollars.

... I HAVE Come To Fix The Sink!

He's here. Johnny asked what took him so long and he muttered something that I didn't understand, but he's here.

He says this "Mark D---" who recommended him, lives down in the Plymouth/Carver area... which happens to be where Andy (remember Andy?) just bought his house.

I think I might know who Mark D--- is. I think he might be this little guy we know as "Sparky."

I'll find that out soon enough, but in the meantime -- if this kid lives in Plymouth, too -- then he's really not so very tardy after all...

... I've NOT Come To Fix The Sink!

Don't know where he was coming from, but according to caller ID Plumber #10 is in our area code -- which, here in Eastern Massachusetts, is not that big.

An hour and forty minutes later, he ain't here yet...

... I've Come To Fix The Sink!

The phone just rang. Caler ID showed some woman's name I didn't recognize, Johnny was up the pub. I was going to let the machine pick up, but then I heard the back door open, which meant Johnny was home, so I answered it.

"Hello?"

"Hello," a man said. "Could I speak to Erin, please?"

"This is."

"Oh. My name is -----. Mark D--- gave me your number. He said you need some plumbing done?"

Well I'll be dipped in shit and call me choc-o-pop, who the seven sisters is Mark D--?

"We do," I said, "but I don't know who Mark D-- is..."

"I don't know him very well myself." Okay well, that's a good sign I guess, that we were recommended to each other by somebody neither of us knows.

"Here," I went on, "why don't I let you speak to [here comes that magic word again] my husband."

Johnny doesn't know who Mark D-- is, either. But it turns out Plumber #9 doesn't want anything to do with us after all (Johnny saw #2 talking to him in the pub, so we suspect that either #2 told #9 that we were assholes, or else he said that this was his job and back off), so it can't hurt to talk to this guy, whoever the hell Mark D-- turns out to be.

So he's on his way over. Supposedly. Any minute now.

We'll see...

Number Nine, Number Nine, Number Nine...

Okay, I don’t know if I can be funny about any of this, but here goes…

Johnny’s not working today (little tiny trauma #1). Since he has the day off, he’s going to go see his doctor because he had a tick on him the other day and the bite has that Lyme-disease look to it (medium-sized trauma #2).

The furnace guy is coming at 5:30 this evening (for me? big huge trauma #3, considering this new furnace guy is our fourth). He told us that he thinks Keyspan has low-income assistance programs for changing over to gas heat. I want to know what the deal is with this before he comes, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to make yet another call to Keyspan to get yet another clipped, two-second answer and hang up feeling like an idiot. I’ve known about this for three weeks and I can’t do it. I just can’t.

So I ask Johnny to do it.

But his dyslexia makes phone books and phone numbers and “press one for this” and “enter the last four digits of that” all really complicated, and when I’m about to begin the process of writing it all down for him I just say “fuck it” and pick up the phone.

After five minutes of “press one for this” and “enter the last four digits of that” – after ten more minutes of some twelve-year-old CSA reading to me exactly what I’m looking at on my computer screen, only backwards, and telling me I’m wrong – after being interrupted three times with wrong answers to the question I still haven’t managed to actually ask – (all of these insults # 4, 5, 6 and 7) – I have an answer.

Keyspan (insult #8) has no low-income assistance programs for changing over to gas heat.

Oh and, as of 6:00, no sign of our 5:30 furnace guy.

Actual Progress?

I actually spoke to the actual plumber from actual Keyspan and he's actually coming tomorrow. Or so he says. Unfortunately he actually remembered me as the actual person who never actually returned his call back in February or whenever it actually was. So we'll see if he actually shows up...

Rest In Pee

Okay, so this toilet that won’t stop running…

It’s in the new bathroom. Sort of a three-quarter bath, I guess, that we built (in a corner of what was once the rotten room) waaaaaaay back in 2004. And 5. And a little bit of 6.

We had a pair of plumbers, John and Bobby. John tall and white-headed. Bobby shorter, with dark hair and a hernia that made him look like he was smuggling footballs under his shirt. Johnny’s known them both for years, from a bar he used to drink at in South Boston. I first met them in, I think, 1998, when they installed the gas dryer in our apartment. They were already retired then, just doing little jobs like that for little money.

John’s the one with the license – come to think of it, I’m not entirely sure whether Bobby was ever actually a plumber or if he was just John’s best friend, keeping him company and handing him wrenches in their golden years. Not to disparage anyone or anything, I just don’t know. Maybe he was.

Anyway, John was the one with the license. He got the permit and met with the inspector and everything. But Bobby was the one that talked to me. And I liked the way Bobby talked to me. He’d joke and mutter, translate all John’s sentences from plumb-speak into English. And he didn’t treat me like a girl. He didn’t tell me dirty jokes or anything, but he treated me like I belonged there, like there was a chance I’d understand what he was saying.

It wasn’t fun, this plumbing project. They were, like I say, retired, so they would show up when they felt like it – every day, but at whatever time – take a break for lunch at noon no matter what had gotten done, and leave when they were tired but never later than, say, three o’clock. I’m no judge of what’s a fair price and what isn’t, but the inspector estimated the cost of our permit based on two times what they charged us, so who was I to comment on their routine?

My grandfather was a plumber, and though I never went to work with him or anything I’d seen him do some work in my folks’ house. Watching white-haired John on his hands and knees with a monkey wrench in his hand reminded me of Grampy, and so I kind of liked having him around. And, like I said, Bobby talked to me.

When the toilet was finally installed but not yet functional, I discovered that the tank wobbled if I tipped it with my finger. The boys said yeah, that was odd, but that’s the way it’s made: the bolt holes didn’t square so there was nothing they could do. I called the manufacturer and the manufacturer said um, yeah, no, it was not supposed to wobble. I called the inspector and he said um, yeah, no, a toilet with a wobbly tank would never pass inspection. So I called the boys and told them um, yeah, no, but they were going to have to figure something out.

They nailed a block of wood behind it on the wall. So it wouldn’t, you know, wobble anymore.

Ingenious, no?

Eventually they did get the bolts to go, and eventually it all did pass inspection. But it’s been making this weird dripping sound since almost the first time that I used it – not constantly, just when you sit on it and then for a while after. It sounds like its coming from under the floor, except for under the floor is a crawl space with dirt, so how could I hear water landing there?

And now it won’t stop running. That, I think, is just cheap plastic innards. I know how to fix it – I did it in the other bathroom about six months ago – but I haven’t gotten around to this one yet because I’m so annoyed I think that it should just go fix itself.

The other day John called to tell us Bobby died. Apparently his father passed away, then four hours later Bobby was taken to the ER short of breath. I asked about his mom but it turns out she’s been gone for years – so that’s a blessing, I suppose, on a day like that.

I still don’t know if Bobby ever was a plumber, but I know that he was my plumber – along with white-haired John. And, though it may not be the most sacred of memorials, I know that I will think of him every time I use the toilet they installed.