The Royal Flush

(Plumber's crack dream)

“Good morning sunshine!” Madelene says to me, while I’m sleeping. She always has this habit of screaming out ‘good morning’ when I’m in a deep slumber. I think it’s some sort of weird resentment on her part that I get to sleep in a bit. Of course I wake up and grumble at her a little, to let her know she succeeded in waking me up.

She rushes of to the shower and goes about her daily regimen. It usually takes her a good hour to just shower up, dry off, moisturize every single cell of her skin, and then get dressed.

Slowly but surely, I rise up from my bed like a corpse, and head into the bathroom. I usually do this when I know Madelene’s about to get out.

“Don’t come in here!”
Madelene screams out, as she hears the doorknob wiggle.
“Huh? You’re getting shy with me after twelve years together? Open the door your freak!”
“No!”

I open it—and I feel the immense pressure of water flowing over my feet. Did she know she was using too much water? I know sometimes she likes to take baths, but for the love of God—this is crazy!

“What happened?”
“The pipes froze and busted.”
Madelene says, as she is swabbing the floors with a broom-like squeegee. (Did I forget to say nekkid?)
“Well how did you take a shower if the pipes froze?”
“I use the hot water only.”
“All hot? Are you crazy? You can give yourself third degree burns that way! What’s wrong with you?”
“I always take showers in extreme hot water.”
She says.

Mom comes up.

“Is your toilet running?”
“Ma! There’s a leak and we have no cold water, plus, it’s a river up here.”

Now, this is what gets me. Every time we call a plumber, they are never available. Never. He said that he had three other appointments and may not get to the house till tomorrow. Tomorrow? We’ll sink if he doesn’t get here by noon! This guy is a real winner too. Everything that you would expect a plumber to look like. On top of that, he thinks he can just ‘chitter-chatter’ with you and not work…then charge you for that hour of talking. He also quoted us $3,000 for our new oil burner. We ended up paying $4,000 for it. He never warned us about the extra grand that his ‘labor fee’ was going to incur.

The water started leaking out into the hallway trying to make its way into my living room. I was swabbing so fast, I think I lost about twenty pounds already. I turned the water off, and the leak stopped. Now I can’t use my own bathroom, I have to go downstairs and utilize theirs.

Before Madelene left for work this morning, she gives me these words of wisdom…

“If it’s yellow, let it be mellow, if it’s brown, flush it down.”

Lovely. These are the rules for flushing. I have a wonderful day ahead of me. Now to wait for Mr. Chatterbox to come fix my pipes.

Meanwhile, I'm watching my little niece who doesn't understand the words, "No! Don't step in that! Stay there! Sit---don't move!" Her expressions are priceless as you can see.