Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Leaky Elbow

He stared at the notorious plumber's butt crack protruding from the man's jeans. The tattoo above that crack, rising from it, more common for a woman to have a flowery tramp stamp, but not unheard of for a man, shifted. He wondered if the flower snaked around to the front, and if it did, where it ended.

"I'll just give this another twist and you'll be all set." The man adjusted the wrench? plier? tooly-thingy-ma-jigger? and turned it gently. "Okay, that should hold it. Let me see here." The man wiped the join with a rag, then rubbed the rag on his cheek.

He wished he was a rag on that cheek.

"Nice and dry. No more problems with this here set of pipes. Now, it'll take me fifteen minutes or so to get that wall sealed back up and my tools packed away and you won't even know I was here."

He died a little then. The last thing he wanted was to not know the man had been here.

"You have any problems with this or any other fixture, you give me a call, here's my card, you stick that on your frigerator, I'll be over ASAP. Anything else you want me to look at long as I'm here? You're already paying for a service call." The man puttied the wonderboard back into place. "Rio, 1963-1987" danced on his bicep.

"You wait an hour or so, you paint over this. You want me to write it up now?" The man pulled an invoice set from his folder, entered a series of codes, totaled it on a pocket calculator. He ripped the top sheet off and handed it over. "Here. You can make a check out or call in a credit card. We take all the major cards."

The man bent over, revealing the flowers again, replacing his tools in the case. "You remember, ‘Trojan Plumbing Satisfies Every Time. No Job Too Big, No Job Too Small. We Clean Your Pipes and Fix Them All.'" The plumber extended his hand. "A pleasure, sir, a real pleasure. You have a nice day now and thank you for your business."

"Yes. A pleasure. Thank you for coming. Thank you." What he wouldn't give to see all the tattoos and piercings hiddden under that "Trojan Plumbing-No more drips, leaks or breaks!" tee shirt and jeans. What he wouldn't give...

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