Unsavory on a good day, the labors of a plumber are sometimes just too much.
“You wouldn’t believe the way some people live,” mine said, chuckling after I apologized for the stack of magazines near my leaky radiator.
There was the elderly woman in Glenview recently whose pipes had burst, after her heat had gone out–in 1996. “I just bundle up,” she told him.
There was the couple who sat at the kitchen table at 9 a.m. with a bottle of Jack Daniel’s between them while their toddler and baby wallowed in overflowing diapers nearby. (He called the Department of Children and Family Services.)
Arriving at the home of a 35-year-old woman a few weeks ago, he was directed to the bathroom. The malfunctioning toilet had not prevented the woman from continuing to use it until it reached capacity. Nor from turning to the bathtub after the toilet had filled. He held his hands to illustrate the depth of what he beheld.
“You don’t need a plumber, lady,” he told her on his hasty retreat. “You need the CDC.”