Since relocating to a new city nearly a year and a half ago I have not been shy about my desire to establish myself as a “local” at all my favorite spots around town. To date I have been remarkable only in my lack of success in this pursuit. We have been fortunate enough to become locals at our favorite bar/restaurant, but even that depends on the wait staff on any given night and I still remain less successful than any female with breasts at acquiring beers from the bar, regardless of who the wait staff happens to be. Outside of that, I’ve only been able to establish myself as a “local” with one of the three shuttle drivers that take me to and from work every day, but that’s only because he’s trying to convert me; one of four bank tellers; one of five cashiers at the Panera near my office, who still, every time I come in says, “what’s your name again? I should remember it by now…” Yes you should, Tony, but I’d prefer it if you just remembered what I order once every goddamn week when I’m here; and the third shift security guard at my office building, who really only remembers me because he thinks I look like the MMA fighter, Kenny Florian – “Go get ‘em, Kenny!” he says every time I see him.
I can’t even catch a break at the one place I frequent more than any other – the Home Depot. I have yet to get any recognition or freebees from a single employee of that godforsaken money suck of a place, requiring me to legitimately steal the occasional piece of lumber or drill bit or something just so I can feel like I’m getting remotely close to my dollar value. I’m at that place so goddamn much that even other customers stop me to ask me questions. Just this past weekend I was stopped during two of my three trips by other shoppers. The first guy was like, “Hey man, you a plumber?” as I was wandering aimlessly about the plumbing aisle. I briefly considered telling him I wasn’t a plumber but a plumbing engineer and offer to help him out, but he looked like he had a really serious dilemma on his hands that I just didn’t want to get mixed up in. Plus, I was a little more than taken aback by the fact that he thought I might actually be a plumber. Either I carried such and air of plumbing authority about me, which I know was not the case because in reality I looked more like I was confused by the fact that my arms were connected to my shoulders and not my butt cheeks as I was futilely looking for some sort of miracle plumbing fitting that apparently only exists in God’s dreams, or he thought I looked like I had no qualms about exposing 3 to 6 inches of my ass crack while I worked. In either case, I just wasn’t interested in helping him out so I said no.
The second shopper stopped me later the same day, again in the plumbing aisle, and again while I was aimlessly looking for a plumbing fitting that is no closer to being a reality than a cure for cancer. I still felt kind of bad for ignoring the first guy, so when the second, whom I will refer to as “Bubba”, asked for help I was compelled to give it.
“Hey bud, what you know about PCV pipe?” Bubba asked.
Well, first of all, I know it’s called PVC, otherwise… “A little bit. What can I help you with?”
“Is this here 4-inch pipe?” he asked, pointing to a section of plastic pipe that clearly had ‘3” PVC’ printed on the side of it.
“Uh, no. That’s actually 3-inch pipe.”
“What about this?” he asked, pointing to a piece of pipe immediately adjacent to the first, also with ‘3” PVC’ printed on the side.
For fuck’s sake, Bubba, this is why I don’t help people. “Uh, no. Actually that’s 3-inch pipe as well. Here, the 4-inch pipe is right over here,” I said, taking him 5 steps to the left to the rack of 4-inch pipe.
I spent another 5 minutes helping him find various pieces and parts to complete whatever project he had cooking, during which it became painfully evident that he couldn’t read, which was actually less concerning compared to his complete lack of listening and comprehension skills. While I was glad to assist him I still can’t help but imagine him sitting on the floor of his garage right now amid a dozen PVC fittings without a clue as to what the fuck to do with them.
Incidentally, I can empathize with Bubba because that was pretty much exactly the same predicament I found myself in, only instead of sitting on the floor of my garage I spent the better part of the weekend underneath the house staring into a hole in my main sanitary pipe, that under normal circumstances is not supposed to have a hole in it so as not to spill any of the shit it is intended to convey to the sewer. To be clear, I am the one who put the hole in the pipe and to be more clear, it was kind of intentional.
The task at the outset of the weekend was to install a new drain line for a clothes washer and connect it to the existing sanitary line underneath the house. As a plumbing engineer and a guy who looks like a plumber to the majority of the customers in the plumbing aisle at the local Home Depot, this whole operation shouldn’t have been too difficult. Unfortunately, my breadth of experience in such matters is roughly equivalent to Bubba’s experience with Dr Seuss books. Or books in general for that matter. Or just words in print. Or the goddamn alphabet people really.
To compensate for my lack of experience I spoke to an actual plumber at a plumbing supply store and he told me what to do then handed me a fitting that was supposed to connect the new drain to the existing one. My listening and comprehension skills being far superior to Bubba’s, I followed the plumbers advice exactly, created the hole in the existing pipe and installed the new pipe. But when it came time to use the plumbing fitting he gave me, fuck me if it wasn’t the wrong one. It was right then that I had my own “oh shit” moment as I would rank having an open sanitary pipe under my house somewhere just below getting kicked in the groin and slightly above communicating with strangers on my list of things I do not want to do.
On a side note, opening up that sanitary pipe was perhaps the most disgusting thing I’ve done to date. Sitting in a small, confined space, staring into a pipe that has been the main conduit for a bunch of shit for the past 60-years was pretty much a low point in my life. To put this whole experience into terms some of the readers out there might understand, I basically disimpacted my house’s colon, then gave it a colonoscopy with my hand and finished up with a colonic with a small metal crowbar.
Anywho, at that point the plumbing supply store was closed for the weekend and the plumber who sold me the fitting was probably sitting at home, whacked out on oxycontin, laughing hysterically to himself about the predicament he put me in by selling me a bullshit plumbing fitting. So that’s how I found myself at Home Depot twice in one day, wandering aimlessly about the plumbing aisle, and ultimately running into Bubba.
As it is right now, there is still a hole in my sanitary pipe, a rubber gasket that is not intended for the purpose of plugging up holes in sanitary pipes is the only thing keeping that hole closed. To put the situation into perspective, I would say that’s like fashioning a pair of pants out of paper towels in lieu of wearing actual pants. Yeah, it might get the job done but it’s going to look really fucked up and if the slightest thing should go wrong your shit is going to be all out in the open. In my case, that shit would be literal. I have no other choice though, until I can get back to the plumbing store next weekend to purchase the correct fitting and kill that goddamn plumber… preferably with a lead pipe, in the study, and I don’t care who sees it.
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