The Plumbing Incident: Still Unclean

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So Terry is back on the horn with the Mob Boss contractor guy. He's amazed that the singing plumbers would leave without fixing the problem. (Why would we make this up? Did he think we found this amusing?) He will have someone out in the morning, and will come by himself to make sure the job gets done. We accept his words with total faith, just as if some bearded guy walked off a mountain and handed us a stone tablet. Because we're stupid.

Morning brings a casting change. The singing duo apparently got a record deal. Now we have a big bald guy, covered with tattoos, stomping around the drive-way in oversized boots, and exuding an attitude that would make a gang of crazed crackheads drop their weapons and scamper away. I make Terry deal with him ("It's YOUR turn! I've been trapped in this giant outhouse all week. Go!") while I race around the house, hiding valuables in case Baldy decides to kill us for our DVD collection.

As I'm shoving Season 6 of "Angel" under the couch, I hear Papi Muerto ask for a ladder. A ladder? What the hell? How does a ladder figure into this equation at all? But I'm busy, I still have several seasons of "Wings" to lock up, so I race off, throwing an old towel over the XBOX 360.

I am interrupted by the sound of what appears to be a giant metal spear slamming through the roof and into the attic. Did we just time warp to Sparta? The noise continues, with whatever it is working it's way toward, I'm only speculating at this point, the guest bathroom. My senses are a little off, mainly because I don't have any mental reference points to apply to the sound and activity I am currently hearing.

I slink up to the patio door and motion Terry over. "What the hell is he doing?"

"He's snaking the toilet through the ventilation pipes. You know, those pipe things sticking out of the roof."

The concept boggles me. I mean, at random moments over the years, I did sort of wonder about those little pipe things on the roof. What are those for? Where did they come from? Why? But it was a brief curiosity, I didn't really care. And now I learn that they are basically transmission points to send our personal aromas out into the universe.

Good gawd.

So I slam the door and wander away, because I'm just not ready to deal. And then the apocalypse began.

People, take a seat. I am here to tell you that what happened after that were some of the most astonishing hours of my life. The noises I had heard up to that point were NOTHING compared to what followed. Papi had only been positioning his devil equipment. When he kicked that thing up to full throttle, the earth freakin MOVED.

Literally. The walls were shaking, the wood floors were vibrating, there were agonizing metallic screams coming from the 50-year-old pipes. An image of Linda Blair burned into a tortilla in the kitchen. I stopped in my tracks in the bedroom, unable to even function at the moment.

Scotch, our already simple cat, came thundering around the corner, mad foam flying from his snarling lips. He slammed full force into my legs, and then started ripping said legs to shreds because I was in his way. I limped to the side, and he dove toward a two-inch opening under the entertainment center. And he got under there. All the way.

And this trauma continued for hours. The only thing that got me through was a vague idea that Dr. Kervorkian had been paroled, and I might be able to find his number if I just googled hard enough.

Finally, the assault stopped. (I kept googling anyway. Hey, I was OVER this.) Terry and the three plumbers came in to check the status. (How did we get to THREE plumbers? Did the noise attract them?) Verdict? It didn't work. Time for Plan B.

This plan involved digging down to the main exit pipe on the side of the house, busting that puppy open, and proceeding from there. So they did this, in a tag-team sort of way, with one plumber snaking, one plumber standing out in the alley at the manhole opening to the city lines, and one plumber running between them, spewing cryptic code and secret passwords. I think they really enjoyed it, so at least somebody was having fun.

I sat on the patio and mopped up the blood that was still gushing from my legs.

Hours later, the plumbing committee decides that there is still a vague issue. Things are flowing a little better, but there's still an obstruction. They are gonna have to come out with a fancy camera, and shove it down that damn pipe to see what's what. But hey, in the interim, they can install a trap on the side of the house to help with the situation. This intrigues me. They are going to install one of these thingies that we should have had in the first place. So I get in my wheelchair and roll over.

"So, how does this work?" I ask, looking all tragic and pale.

"Well, we're gonna cut out a chunk of this here pipe, and insert this little piece of PVC that's gotta screw-top lid. That way, when people need to snake this thing, they already got access, don't have to go through the toilets or the roof." He's obviously dumbing this down for me, probably because I'm clutching my medic-alert bracelet and I have a twitch in my left eye.

"But, how does that help us NOW? We're still draining slow."

"Well, until we can get this all worked out, if you start backin up again, you can just pop the top and let it gush out. We can throw some lime on it, you won't smell a thing."

So I look at where he's standing, next to the driveway. And I look at the driveway, which slopes down to the street. A street full of retired people who have nothing better to do than stand at their bay windows and record every detail of every single thing that ever happens. People who might see poop floating down our driveway and into a public thoroughfare, and then proceed to call the City Council, because they've already got them on speed dial.

The twitching in the left eye increases.

But the plumber, he's a professional at spin control, and offers "But at least you can still have your party tonight, just use this trap if you need to. Of course, might wanna tell them to hold off on the toilet paper."

OMG. The party. Completely forgot about this during the last few hours what with the howling pussy and the slashed legs. We have people coming over. In a few hours. Great. Lovely. Now we've got to call all the party guests and say "Hey, if you envision a bowel movement in your near future, could you maybe take care of that before you head over? Oh, and you probably shouldn't walk up the driveway. Seriously."

Just shoot me in the head. Please.


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