Taking one’s chances is like taking a bath, because sometimes you end up feeling comfortable and warm, and sometimes there is something terrible lurking around that you cannot see until it is too late and you can do nothing else but scream and cling to a plastic duck.
—Lemony Snicket
The problem with living a normal life is that normal, inconvenient things happen—specifically, a faulty shower in your newly acquired townhouse. Taking a shower in our bathroom was like taking a shower in a frozen hell. The water was icy cold, and for some freakish reason, the handle wouldn’t turn to hot. The handle would turn halfway one way and then you had to bring it back up and turn it halfway the other way. It was supposed to make one, sweeping circle all around. Talia, Elise, and I would not put up with this. We immediately called our landlord Anne and told her our dilemma. Enter: the plumber.
The plumber was supposed to come Wednesday afternoon. I had to be home to let him in, because both Elise and Talia were going to be gone. I thought nothing of it, until he rang the doorbell. When I opened the door I was face to face with a brown haired, mustached man wearing a blue and white striped shirt with the name “Carl” embroidered in red on the pocket. His face instantly reminded me of Sven from that one mission in Budapest
I stared up at Carl, who handed me a business card for A-1 Plumbing. Now, any fool can go and get business cards printed up, saying their name is whatever they want and that their occupation is whatever they choose. For example, I could get business cards saying my name is Amelia Kanderstein, and that I am an orthopedic doctor, but that wouldn’t make it true. In reality, my name would still be Jolie Rossen, and I would still be an ex-agent and current college student. So how was I supposed to believe that this “Carl” person was really a plumber? I did what I have done since age 16.
I took a chance.
I let Carl into my house, showed him the shower and explained the problem, then immediately went downstairs and placed the business card on the kitchen counter. That way, if I did get abducted, Talia would have something to go off of.
While Carl was upstairs working on the shower, I remained downstairs and did some work of my own. I looked out the window and memorized the plate of Carl’s white van. I also made a banana-milk-chocolate smoothie, because not only was I lacking in potassium, but I was hungry. I heard Carl banging around upstairs, then he came downstairs, went out to his van, got some equipment, then went upstairs again. After Carl went upstairs for the second time, I decided to go check my mailbox. I wasn’t so much checking to see if I received any coupons from Bi-Mart as I was checking out the contents of Carl’s van. He had carelessly left the back end open. I peeked inside and saw standard plumber’s equipment.
Eventually, Carl finished fixing the shower and demonstrated to me the full swivel action of the shower dial. I thanked him, signed a form, and escorted him to the door. When he left, I promptly went to my computer and ran his plates. They came out clean, just like freshly washed dishes. I decided to look up Sven’s profile on the agency’s database, just for good measure. One problem: I could not longer log in. My account had been terminated. This made sense, considering I resigned from the agency. For some reason I had never really thought about how my resignation would affect me. I sort of thought I’d always be able to look up people’s addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers, medical records, police records, high school transcripts, etc. But without my agency log in, all I had left were Google and the phone book. Defeated, I decided to test out my newly working shower before Elise or Talia got home.
Wretched idea.
Oh sure, the swivel action of the handle was amazing. It went from hot to cold in one sweeping motion. And then it stayed there. At cold, I mean. The hot water lasted as long as my attention span in Linguistics 215—four minutes. Near the end of my Siberian shower, I was really upset at Carl. He had sauntered in, pretending like he had graduated from plumber’s school—what with his official business card and all—and had failed to fix the main dilemma of my shower. Pissed, I got out of the water and began to chisel icicles off of my body.
When Elise and Talia got home, I explained Carl’s shotty job. We all agreed that he needed to make another visit and actually fix the problem. After a small amount of discussion, Elise surprised us by saying, “I bet an element is out on the water heater.” Neither Talia nor I knew what she was talking about, considering we were more familiar with disarming bombs than repairing water heaters.
“And have you been a plumber?” Talia interestedly asked Elise.
“No, but I watch a lot of HGTV.”
“Oh.”
“Well, when Carl stops by tomorrow,” I began, “I’ll give him the tip.”
So for that particular evening I helped Elise and Talia heat water on the wood stove and then they took a bath in the galvanized watering trough we keep in the backyard for the horses, just like in the olden days.
As fate would have it, I again was left alone to deal with Carl and his mediocre plumbing skills. He arrived at 10:07 am, while I was bench pressing my regular 260 in the garage. I opened the front door.
“Carl,” I civilly said to him.
“Ma’am.”
I quickly clued the plumber in to Elise’s tip about the burnt out element and directed him to the location of the water heater. Then I went outside to check my mail. While checking my mailbox, I noticed a few extra things about Carl’s van. On the dashboard were the remnants of a McDonald’s egg McMuffin, a gym membership card (how ironic), yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, and a catalog advertising different lengths of pipe. None of this quite interested me as much as the parking pass that was hidden among the debris. The pass wasn’t for the county fair, as one might suppose, but for the U.S. Department of Defense. Quite interesting indeed, I think you’ll agree. Pondering my new information, I went back inside to see how Carl was progressing. Several minutes later he made a confession to me.
“You were right,” he began, “one of the elements was out. That was the reason you only got a few minutes of hot water. The only water that had warmed up was the top water, which was used up quickly. I replaced the element, so now your entire tank should heat up no problem. You should be able to take lots of hot, steamy showers now.”
I eyed him suspiciously, drawing a kitchen towel close to me.
“Well, thanks for your help,” I lied. I showed Carl to the door and dead bolted it after he left.
A few hours later I decided to test the full capacity of the water heater. I was standing in the hot shower with hibiscus shampoo in my hair singing “Rubber Ducky” when I had a sudden realization. Scrambling to rinse my head, I quickly shut off the water and wrapped a towel around myself. I darted downstairs and went into the garage where the water heater is located. I felt around the back of the tank and then checked under part of it. I found a minuscule box the size of a domino and ripped it off from the underside. I quickly recognized it as none other than a voice transmitting box—you know, the kind used to bug people’s houses. My suspicions were confirmed.
No comments:
Post a Comment