"A lawyer needed a leak fixed and called the plumber; who after about 45 minutes was done and all cleaned up. "That will be $75" said the plumber. The lawyer objected saying "I'm a lawyer, and I don't even get that much an hour!" The plumber responded: "I didn't either, when I was a lawyer"."
- from Jokesaround.com

"The more you overtake the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain."
- Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, Star Trek III - The Search for Spock

"I should've been a plumber. The technology of pipes really hasn't changed in about 80 years."
- Vikar

August 5th, 2003

My temper sometimes gets the best of me. Picture this.

I'm cooking penne pasta in a sundried tomato pesto sauce when I realized I needed my colander. After I dumped the pasta into the colander, to drain the water, I usually use the same saucepan (my favorite nonstick saucepan) to cook the sauce. It doesn't take long and the pasta, in order to get it just right, should be somewhat dry. After the sauce was done, I slowly poured the noodles into the saucepan, stirred, poured again, and stirred again until the colander was empty.

One of the best things a cook can do is to clean as he goes. So, after I finished using the colander, I washed it off and dried it. It was now time to put it back under the sink. It wouldn't go. With half an eye on my dinner, still in the saucepan, I moved the colander around under the sink. It still wouldn't fit.

Now hunger was setting in. Enter my infamous Italian rage.

I took the colander and started to force it in. THIS (Bang!) DAMN (Bang!) THING (Thud!) WILL (Crash!) FIT (Bang!) UNDER (Thud!) THIS (Crash!) F@#$KING (CRACK!) SINK!

It fit.

I sighed and put the penne pasta dinner on two plates and served dinner. After dinner, my wife and I decided to relax and watch some TV. I put all of the dishes into the dish washer and decided to let it wait until morning.

One side note: I think 2003 will be marked as one of the wettest summers ever. That night was an electrical storm followed with what I can only describe as "wrath of God"- like rain. The next morning I got up to walk Guinness and Killian. All was well until Guinness decided to have some fun by rolling in the mud.

You haven't lived until you've had to wash a black Pomeranian.

Guinness, being especially muddy had to be hosed off and dried. The kitchen sink had the water gun so I decided to wash him there. After I emptied the sink of a couple of coffee mugs and a small bowl full of water, I ran the faucet. Guinness didn't want to be on the counter so he, in his doggy way, tipped over the bowl of water that was in the sink onto the floor. I washed Guinness and toweled him off. I then grabbed the mop to clean what that little bastard dumped on the floor. After a quick mopping, I started the dishwasher and went to watch some TV.

After about an hour, I decided that I really needed that first cup of life giving coffee. So, I went back into the kitchen to start the coffee maker and noticed that the floor was still wet. I thought it was unusual that the floor should still be wet an hour after I mopped it. But as the day was overcast, it was still possible that the floor wasn't dry. I grabbed the mop and washed the floor - again.

As I waited for the coffee to brew, I went back to the TV and started to watch the Cartoon Network. 10 minutes later, the coffee was done and the floor seemed to look wetter. I paid no real attention to it. I was mentally going over my Sunday itinerary. After TV, go to the car and get the Pine Sol to mop all of the kitchen, boil water (enough for a large bucket), clean the bedroom, work on Michael's Chiropractic website, work on Art's Karate website, and start organizing my study.

That's when I heard it.

It was the sound of water splattering on tile combined with the sound of the dishwasher going on the rinse cycle. I went back to the kitchen sink and saw a growing puddle of water. I went to the cabinet (which housed the colander) just in time to see the dishwasher waste water connection to the sink spray hot water over every item under the kitchen sink. There was a huge hole that was cracked open in that pipe.

Right next to the colander. Ooooops. Lovely.

I am a web designer by trade. I can cook good meals. I can also clean. If you give me directions on how to assemble a piece of furniture, 9 times out of 10, I can put it together. I know things about landscaping and what to do to make your lawn greener. I have a 135 IQ and a bachelor's degree in Marketing. If you have a question about Marketing or Management, I can give you an intelligent answer. If you have a question about superhero trivia, get a stop watch and watch me roll. I am good at these things.

Now, here are things I am not good at.

Number 1 - Plumbing. Number 2 - Electrical Work. Number 3 - Automotive Stuff. Number 4 - Taxes and Investment Strategy. Number 5 - Medical Stuff. Number 6 - Insurance Stuff (although when I was 22, I was licenced to sell Life Insurance for Met Life, I've forgotten most of it). Don't even think of asking me to solder something. This comes from many years of paternal neglect and the enforcement of self-reliance. The closest I've come to automotive work was to help my father's friend Paul Saliba change the shock absorbers on my father's Pontiac Sunbird. He said to my father, "Some boys don't take to cars." I can't even change oil. I'm that useless.

However, this is not unusual for most computer geeks. Computer logic is exactly that: Logic. There is a progressive flow to what a programmer or a designer does. But it is the computer that does the actual work. The programmer merely provides the directions for the computer to follow. Plumbers, doctors, contractors, mechanics, carpenters, masons, and construction workers do real work. I live in envy of people who have a knack for that sort of thing. Especially bricklayers. They can, at least, do a day's work and see what they've accomplished at the end of it.

The typical intelligence scale for repair work (non computer related) goes in this order (lowest to highest) - Evangelical born again Televangelists, me, computer geeks, a rock, a not too bright tree stump, a dung beetle, an average Joe, then Tradesperson. But that's just my opinion and there are exceptions to every rule. There are some computer geeks who can out do dung beetles in automotive repair, but it is a rare thing.

I knew that I didn't have the funds to call a professional to solve my particular plumbing problem so I decided to do this myself. (Save your laughter until later folks.) I had a book on basic plumbing in the house as I had toilet troubles before and managed to fix the old crapper with its help. When hunting for a book on basic plumbing initially, I had told the person at Barnes & Noble that the Plumbing for Dummies book may be too complex and I might need something a bit more elementary. I was expecting to see a child's pop-up book entitled, Plumbing for Vikar with definitions of who a plumber was and what pipes do. Instead, I got something in the middle.

I let the dishwasher run its course then I mopped the floor - again. I then told my wife not to use either the sink or the dishwasher until I got back from Home Depot. Yes, Home Depot. Home Depot is like kryptonite to me. It is the one place I can be a complete idiot and it will be apparent on my face that I am a complete idiot. I needed a couple of things: A monkey wrench, a new water disposal pipe, something to seal the pipe with, and a miracle.

After I spoke to the first sales person who helped me find the plumbing department, I needed to ask a second salesperson on what else I might need to fix the water disposal pipe. He suggested that since I had no experience soldering anything, I should use 1-2-3 metal epoxy. I figure anything to keep me away from a soldering gun was a good thing. Fortunately for me, the dish washer water disposal pipes only come in one size and I was able to find the actual pipe with no problem. I also figured that I wouldn't need the largest monkey wrench as this, hopefully, wouldn't be a regular thing. In addition to all of the other plumbing stuff the epoxy direction suggested application with latex gloves*. I bought those too.

You can never have too many latex gloves.

I came home, cleared the cabinet under the sink of all the stuff that was underneath it, threw away everything that could not be salvaged (like Brillo pads that would surely rust) and got ready for work.

No. 1 (Rule) - Always shut off the water before doing any kind of pipe work.
No. 2 (Suggestion) - It's good to dry the bottom of the cabinet that has had used dishwater sprayed all over it before lying on top of it. (Ewwww!)

After the normal amount of swearing and speaking in tongues that usually accompanies home maintenance, I managed to reconnect the pipes and fix the problem. There have been no more leaks. That plumbing problem was fixed.

Since the day I was born, I've suffered from what is medically called a cavernous hemangioma. It is a deep vascular malformation of the venous system. It is a large cluster of blood vessels located in the middle of my triceps. It makes my right arm look more muscular than it really is. It has now grown to the point where there is nowhere left within my triceps for it to go. It is now starting to infiltrate into other muscles in my biceps, shoulder, and back. Increased humidity causes me pain as the vessels expand. It makes movement limited and sleep impossible 2-3 months out of the year. I'll be going under the "knife" later this month.

Plumbing problems on a different system and scale.

It is that type of problem that puts the leak under the sink into real perspective. Rather than fix this plumbing problem myself, I have to seek a professional. This professional will seal the leaks, check the pipes and keep clogs from forming. His fees must be paid. It is more than what a mop can clean and more than the discomfort of lying on wet water.

The tools used are more complex than a monkey wrench and more sophisticated than a metal apoxy. They are MRI scanners and alcohol catheters.

The plumber in this case cannot make mistakes, he is firmly committed to fixing the problem the first time around and does not rely on "Dummies" books for his craft. He is the doctor you need.

It is times like this that I remember it's difficult to keep things in scale. That there are more important things than what damage can happen in your domicile. Sometimes we forget that there's a difference between "how you live" and actually "living". It's the difference between "working to live" and "living to work"; "having a wedding" and "getting married"; "having a balanced diet" and "living a balanced life".

It is the difference between "problem" and "inconvenience".

*- I also found out that once you mix the metal epoxy that the chemical reaction makes the compound very warm (almost hot) to the touch. Hence the latex was the best move.