the immortal plumber

[NB: if you’re reading this category in full you might want to start at the bottom.]

So – our man showed up at 9am, as promised. [I’ve never met a more punctual plumber - it ain’t normal.] Having taken his shoes off outside the door [this is new] he marched directly to the bathroom and went straight for the single remaining rosette, turning it over and over in his hand and nodding, as though inspecting some sort of rare rosette sample.

YT: I can’t imagine what happened to the other one.
IP: [doomsday voice] I can’t get you another one of these.
YT: […]
IP: I can go across the street [to the DIY store] and get you chromed rosettes.
YT: They’d look stupid, though. [The faucet is white].
IP: I can get you chromed rosettes if you want, but I’ll tell you something, that faucet doesn’t have long to live.

[NB Regular readers may recall that this is the same man who said ‘I don’t bury people before they’re dead.’]

YT: [thoughtful] So maybe we should just get a new faucet…
IP: [stabs finger in YT’s general direction for emphasis] I’ll tell you one thing. It doesn’t matter to me one iota if I put on new chromed rosettes or if I put up a new faucet.

[Meaningful pause]

YT: I’ll call EPI and see what he wants to do. [Pick up phone] I can’t make a decision without him, you know.
IP: [fails to catch the subtle YT humour] That’s good because he’d do exactly the same with you. He can’t make a decision without you. Whether he’d admit it or not. Women are a lot better at making decisions.

[YT calls EPI; after a short collaboration we decide on a new faucet.]

YT: [to IP already out in the stairwell] OK, we’re going for the faucet.
IP: OK, then let me give you one piece of advice: DO NOT buy anything that’s not German. It will be crap. OK, maybe they make decent gadgets in Spain and Italy but in general, anything that’s not German is guaranteed to be crap. It’s all to do with the copper inside the gadget. [Launches into Teacher mode] It all comes down to the amount of zinc in the copper. When there’s too much zinc… [long discourse follows on the physics of too much zinc in copper.] Some of these gadgets, they look really good but let me tell you, the people who make those things are making millions selling poor quality gadgets to people like you. I bought this imitation antique gadget for friends of mine recently and I made them promise to never, ever make me fix it…

[and so on]

So YT and EPI went out today but of course dared not buy anything that was not German [we kind of liked the look of this Spanish gadget they had, but nooo] fearing the plumber’s wrath in the morning and a lengthy lecture akin to the one he gave about the tiles a couple weeks back. Yikes!

TODAY’S WEATHER WAS…
Um. Cool, especially with windchill, thin cloud cover. So thin that when the skies opened up this afternoon with a torrential rainfall it came as a complete surprise and YT was not prepared. Never mind – went for physio and then to the hot pot at the pool where there tend to be some hilarious characters, too. Old retired fishermen talking about the merits of cod vs halibut. Hm. Perhaps I’ll collect some stories there when Our Plumber finally finishes with us. Current temps 8°C and daybreak 06.02 nightfall 20.42.

Today I had occasion to call up the immortal plumber. Contrary to what regular readers may believe, the reason is not that I am wasting away from want of his enchanting company. The thing is that when he sledgehammered his way through the bathroom wall and removed the bathtub faucet, he also removed the little rosette-type things [or whatever they’re called] that shield the screws that attach the faucet to the wall. And I want them back. Because it looks absolutely stupid like it is now.

So I called him up, ‘Hi, it’s YT blablabla… rosettes blablabla… looks stupid.’

Immortal plumber [in a (mono)tone of supreme superiority]: They’ll be in the bathroom.
YT: They’re not.
IP: If I take them off I always leave them in the bathroom.
YT: Well, they’re not there.
IP: They should be there.
YT: They’re not.
IP: Somebody must have thrown them out.
YT: Nobody threw them out…
IP [struggling to maintain zen-like tone]: Well I certainly didn’t throw them out!
YT: Well, they’re gone now.
IP: Then somebody must have removed them from the area.

[A doubtful YT heads for the bathroom to double-check]

YT [checks window sill, behind Venetian blind, sees one rosette-type thing]: Oh, here’s one of them!
IP [triumphant] See? The other one is there, too.
YT [marvels at IP’s ability to see great distances and through walls] No, there’s only one.
IP: If one is there, the other one is there, too.
YT: The other one is not here.
IP: Then somebody must have thrown it out.
YT [exasperated] Look. There is only one rosette-type thing here. I don’t know where the other one is, who threw it out, or if it walked out by itself. How can we handle this situation?
IP [annoyed] OK, OK, I’ll get you another rosette-type thing, all right? [Changes into martyr] I have no idea what it looked like, but…
YT: It’s one of those antique-look things…
IP [annoyed again]: Yes yes, I can’t remember what it’s like. [Martyr again] But I’ll get you another rosette. Don’t worry.

Already YT is breathless with anticipation at the prospect of the plumber’s delightful discourse first thing tomorrow morning.

THE WEATHER
I couldn’t believe my eyes this morning: half of Mt. Esja was actually white with snow! Which can only mean one thing: all those blueberries we left behind are now officially dead and buried. [Sniff. They would have made such an excellent pie.] And yes, it was pretty damn cold today, what with the wind from the north and the windchill factor. Still, headed out on a mini-hike with EPI’s colleagues up in the Heiðmörk nature reserve, then had a barbecue replete with burgers and hot dogs and beer, before heading home. By that time we were freezing our buns off, so it was not a moment too soon. Current temps are 6°C and daybreak was at 05.59, nightfall at 20.49.

Back by popular demand, we give you more immortal words from The Plumber:

ON SHORT TENDONS
‘I was thinking that your problem might be a leak behind the bathtub. I started thinking about that while I was soaking in the bath this morning. I have short tendons. When I was a kid I used to go up on my toes all the time but I don’t tend to do that anymore. I take baths to deal with the problem. When I soak in the bath my tendons lengthen. I couldn’t function if I didn’t soak in the bath once a day.’

ON FAVOURITE BATH SALTS
‘Do you know kelp? Kelp? My son’s friend runs a wholesale business that imports, what do you call it, you know women’s stuff, stuff that women buy for no reason. Like ornaments and things you put on side tables. And she has these bath salts and she gave me a bunch of samples, she made me smell them and was all promoting them and everything and I just smelled this one called ‘kelp’ – that means seaweed – and, mmmm I didn’t need to smell any more. She was all like, ‘smell this’ but I said, ‘no’, and now I have this big jar of it and I use it all the time.’

ON TWO TYPES OF TILE IN OUR HOUSE
[Disdainful] ‘I see somebody’s been doodling, putting tiles down here. Whoever did this didn’t have the first idea what they were doing. They’ve put down two different kinds of tile. You never, ever do that. If an architect walked in here he’d have a stroke. And at least if you’re gonna do that, you never, ever try to make the patterns match. He should have made one diamond-shaped. What you need to do is get a [some special kind of]-saw and you saw this bit here and make a threshold… [YT interrupts, saying that it will never happen, as both she and EPI have other priorities when it comes to time.] [Plumber picks up Europris flier from the kitchen table.] Hey, look! Here’s the saw you need right here!’

ON WHETHER ALL THE PIPES SHOULD BE REPLACED
‘Hell, no! I don’t bury people until they’re dead.’

What a card. Yuck yuck.

MEANWHILE, THE WEATHER HAS BEEN…
Wet. It rained buckets and buckets and buckets today. The kind of rainfall you never used to get here before Climate Change, which now is a lot more like Status Quo. A tropical-shower-like rainfall – vertical rain, and lots of it. Oh, and it’s getting just a wee bit cold, too. It’s 10°C at the moment. We’re in for wind from the north tomorrow – yech! The worst kind of wind you can get here in Niceland – because it comes from the North Pole and it’s nasty. Daybreak today was 04.45 and nightfall is set for 22.09. Getting dark pretty early now.

Yesterday I had the great fortune of having a plumber here for the better part of the day, who knew absolutely everything there was to know about everything. And was passionate about sharing that knowledge with YT. To the point where it was difficult to ascertain if the plumber had actually come to repair a pipe or to take YT hostage. Some excerpts:

ON STRONG COFFEE
‘Weak coffee will kill you. They’ve done studies. My son is a mathematician and he’s worked it out that when you pour water onto coffee the first two times it releases oil and flavours, but if you pour it more than that it releases all these toxins that poison you.”

ON COFFEE IN AMERICA
“You can’t get good coffee in America. The only place to get good coffee in America is in the Polish quarter in New York City. I know because my daughter lived there.”

ON MAKING DECISIONS
“I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how we make decisions. Not we as individuals but as nations. It’s all in the rationale that lies beneath our thought processes. I’ve spent a lot of time travelling and thinking about this.”

ON THE CRUELTY OF WOMEN
“Women are a lot more cruel than men. They’ve studied it at Oxford. There’s this TV programme about ‘human behavior’ [he used English] that they keep showing on BBC Prime. They got this cute little dog – you know, really cute with the eyes and everything – and they said to people, ‘this dog shat on the floor and I want you to go in and punish it.’ The men went in and shouted at the dog. The women went in and… [long whistle]. They had to replace that damn beast several times because the women just… . This was a study they did at Oxford.”

ON REVENGE
“The best way to punish somebody is to use their own conscience against them. I know, because I was married to an alcoholic for 20 years. Whenever she’d disappear for four days straight, I’d go out and buy her jewellery.”

…. Needless to say, this guy was worth his weight in entertainment value. The only thing he didn’t seem to know was how to use his own plumbing properly and direct his urine into the toilet bowl, rather than on the floor all around it. Eww.

MEANWHILE WE HAD FINE WEATHER TODAY…
Even if there is a very slight chill in the air. The sun came out this morning and stayed out, albeit with intermittent clouds. Went for physiotherapy [bad neck, whiplash injury] and then to the pool to flake out in the hot pot and soak up some rays. Mmm, very nice. Our current temps are 12°C and daybreak was at 04.26, nightfall at 22.34.

Last night, after a lurrvely dinner at home with some great company, YT retired at 12.50am. Precisely one hour later, at 1.50am, she was shaken out of her slumber by a highly agitated EPI standing over her and declaring, “We’ve got serious trouble!”

EPI went on to mutter something incoherent about a puddle, trickling water and a bucket, and stormed out of the room. [Although on reflection it is possible that ‘incoherent’ was more about YT’s processing of information]. An exceedingly groggy YT followed, stumbling down the hallway, still very much drifting on that white cloud of sleep that had so deliciously enveloped her moments before.

But alas! What did I see when I entered the pantry? There was, indeed, a puddle on the floor, and a bucket next to it with a mop, that EPI had furiously been using to soak up the water. ‘Put your ear to the wall!’ EPI demanded, while YT was still trying to get her head around the fact that she was in fact standing in the pantry in the blinding electric light and not, in fact, dreaming. So I put my ear to the wall and had to concede that, yes, there was indeed the very soothing sound of trickling water inside it.

Meanwhile, EPI had had more time to get worked up about this and had progressed to the pulling-his-hair-out stage. YT just leaned on the mop, sort of stunned, and stared at the puddle that was growing larger by the minute. EPI was going on about having to wake the neighbours, etc. and suddenly he was out the door.

So YT mopped and mopped, and went and put on some clothes [because I evidently was not about to wake up from this bad dream] and then mopped some more, and now that her mind was working again, worked out that it might be a good idea to call the insurance company.

By that time EPI had returned so I told him of my brilliant idea and he got on the blower and called the emergency number at the insurance company. Much to my amazement, a moment later he was actually talking to a real live person on the other end. [No, I have not had much experience with this sort of thing. Thankfully.] To my further amazement, that person appeared to be calm and was making eminent sense. A plumber would be dispatched. The plumber would assess the situation. It was all under control.

By that time, two of our neighbours had arrived, so YT did what one does in these sorts of situations: made tea. Eventually, around 3-ish, the plumber arrived, looking and acting perfectly chipper, as though 3am were a perfectly civilized hour to be going out and visiting people. He went into the basement, turned off the cold water, instructed us to inform the rest of the people in the building so they wouldn’t turn on the shower in the morning and scald themselves [because our hot water is geothermal, meaning it comes directly out of the volcanic ground at a temperature of around 60°C/140F], said he’d turn up between 9 and 10, and then left.

So of course, we didn’t get to sleep until around 4 am and were up at 7.30. At which time EPI blithely left for work. The plumber showed up at the stipulated time and proceeded to demolish the wall between our pantry and our bathroom, locating the offending leaky pipe. Long story short, it was a dirty, messy, yucky, noisy day – and that plumber was a piece of work, let me tell you, fancied himself a bit of an armchair philosopher that one. Some of the pearls of wisdom that came rolling out of that guy’s mouth were just too precious for words. And clever YT actually collected some of them and will definitely post them, but not tonight because I am – justifiably – totally – wasted.

Oh, and the weather was fine. Cloudy I think, mostly. Temps around 13°C and daybreak was at 04.22, nightfall will be at 22.39.