Plumbing New Depths NEW

Posted By:	The Boneman
Posted On:	Fri Jun 29th, 2007

Well well, will y'look who's back! And two months in a row, at that. Sweet Sassy Sorghum - best pass me li'l more son, then step back Jack! Cuz it's a crack-a-lack fact that dem Happy Days is up in here agin. Yessir I'll be back with the news - ‘bout crazy old Mel and his views on Jews - might just get old Josh E W sued. Yea verily it is my hopeful hope, that we can push that envelope - and if we open her up to see who wins - It won't be the weenies or the jerks or the pinchfaces with their smarmy smirks - it'll be you and me a-wearin' grins. Everybody sing . . .

So I just got back from a film festival where I saw this heartsmashing documentary about the crazy BS going on in Darfur. I was so anxious to help expose this outrageous atrocity that I tried pretty hard to make a Boneman out of it. Right way I stumbled upon a little journalistic truism – genocide isn't very funny. Yes, try as I might to tattoo a few punchlines upon the fact that about half a million people (just defenseless families - men, women, babies) are being burned alive by their own government, no such luck. Just as sort of a desperate Hail Mary, I thought I'd just start writing and see if I could just make it happen. The result of which is that brilliant verse at the top there. To be honest I wasn't aware that I was so richly blessed with the rapping skills, but I'm clearly sick with it. "Consider yourself warned Vanilla Ice."

Speaking of crap - about two weeks ago my water heater crapped out. Not such a huge deal, right? Call a plumber, have him check the element first and if it's worse than that, you pony up for a new one. Not quite that simple, I'm afraid. That approach is for people who have water heaters they can "see." Although we know where ours "is," we can't "see" it. I was able to reach in and touch it (I even fiddled with it enough to figure out that 220 volts is enough electricity to change your mind about do-it-yourself home repair). My clinched-up plumber-butt was airborne. To be honest, when it comes to making my wife laugh, I much prefer a well-timed one-liner, to sailing through the kitchen sideways. Though it was faint, for about an hour afterward if you put your ear to my mouth you could hear the Dodgers game, and for two days if I happened to fart near the front of the house, the garage door would open. We got it on video.

Regardless how fast you can restore hot water to your home, you can pretty much count on at least a few Spartan experiences in the shower. Hell, I figured we'd be fine. The Boneman clan comes from hearty, handcart stock. Sadly it would take only a day to know in our hearts that as far as traversing prairie and plain might be concerned - we're more "SkyWest" stock. And at the risk of being labeled 21st century candy-asses – I'm just gonna say it - cold showers suck for the birds. Luckily we have access to a pool, so while the fam waited for me to dismantled the kitchen, they took care of their hygienic needs at the pool. Strangely as much as we love to swim there and frequently do, showering there proved to be more than we were willing to face on a daily basis. The thing is, I'm not exactly a "shower freak." I get one in pretty much every day, but I work at home, have no social life to speak of and if it becomes absolutely necessary that I leave the house, I can have a quick swish in the sink to wash my face and straighten my beard in case I slept it crooked, slap on a hat - Costco here we come. As for my girls, as long as I keep them air-conditioned they can go a surprising number of days before they turn.

You're probably wondering why all this should take so long. The main reason is my wife doesn't believe in paying money for any type of service. She's a hair dresser and lives by the motto that cars, boats and houses are the only things that can't be acquired by trading-out hair services. "Okay" I say, "what about the guy we got last time?" Oh hell no - my wife explains. Not only is he "shall we say" no longer in need of hair-services, but by all reports this particular fellow is the most unscrupulous tool who ever whipped out his caulk. Actually, in my estimation, he hooked us up pretty square last time, but my brother in-law is in the contractor game and he claims that I'm the only person he knows of who hasn't taken a bath courtesy of this guys' handy work. I guess he acquired his shady rep by charging a hapless elderly couple something like $2,400 just to flip the reset button on their Rheem. I guess he must have carried in some big tools and banged around for a while and then y'know Rheemed ‘em but good. I don't quite know whether to credit any of this or not, but you hate to see folks getting hoodwinked out of ignorance – it could just as easily have been me. Goodness - you get a reputable plumber, the same service is what, a little over a grand? Even more ironic is their grandson is a plumber who lives out of state, but when he came to visit he was just livid about the whole thing, threatening to call the Better Business Bureau and so forth. Turns out he'd've done it for $500.

The one positive thing to come of the whole goofy saga is that evidently we showed up at church just fragrant enough to chase off the crazy opera lady. It just goes to show you never know where a blessing might pop up. We pretty much always sit on the same bench and crazy opera lady always sits right behind us. There's really no way to convey what crazy opera lady can do to a hymn or how impossible it is not to come down with the most insane and exhausting case of the church giggles when she lets go. I mean I'm sure when she was younger and could still hear herself she was admired for her fine singing voice. Sadly, as her hearing has dwindled, she struggles mightily with intonation; but the good Lord knows it hasn't in any way affected her zeal. I really do admire her spunk, it's just that I have the worst time teaching my girls the virtues of respect and reverence when I'm convulsing helplessly, dangerously close to an aneurism from the cranial pressure. Every week it's the same: The Hymn books shaking in front of our red faces – every muscle strained to exhaustion, locked-up, sweating - just trying to hang . . in . . there - literally sick from the tension and lack of oxygen – the Bishopric - a DaVinci-like tableau of wrath, horror – staring down with such open consternation that you'd think we were the Manson family.

Hopefully we'll be able to shower by next Sunday. We totally missed the crazy opera lady.