The Plunger in the Closet

Megan had routed all the plumbing calls to one dedicated line in the library. She mentally called it her “Batphone”, and when it rang that Wednesday morning, her heart began racing and her palms began to sweat a little as she answered the call with her most professional sounding receptionist voice.

“Roy’s Plumbing, how can we help you?”

The caller seemed to have a clog, a monster clog, backing up water into his guest bathroom tub. No amount of grocery store remedies could unplug it. Megan put the caller on hold, then went back on the line after a suitable wait and told the caller that the first opening they had was for 7 PM that night. Of course, they worked evenings. Of course, they took Visa cards. No problem. She jotted down the address of the clog and the person’s name and number and hung up, smiling. Roy’s plumbing was prompt, courteous, and professional. (Roy’s Plumbing had also gone out of business four years ago. But that was just semantics)

The first time she had done it, a crying woman on the phone was preparing for a dinner party, with guests on the way, and a clogged toilet. Megan kept trying to tell her that she had not reached Roy’s plumbing at all, but the El Segundo public library, to no avail. The crying woman was begging for help, offering any amount of money if she would just send a plumber out immediately before her husband’s boss showed up for dinner and would have to be directed to the bathroom at the corner gas station if he needed to take a whizz, or worse. Megan could not stand the sound of a crying woman, so she took down her address and said, “I’ll send someone right out.”

Megan had taken a break from her desk and googled “How to unclog a toilet”.  It really didn’t seem that complicated, so she punched out, and headed on her errand of mercy. She went by the hardware store and purchased a special toilet plunger for 10.99 and arrived at the distraught woman’s home within a half hour. It took maybe all of two minutes to unclog the thing, but she made a lot of grunting noises and rattled the toilet’s lid twenty times to make it sound much more strenuous and difficult than it was.  The nervous hostess had her purse in hand, waiting for her to come out of the bathroom, and before Megan could even make an excuse for having no invoice, ID, or a company truck, the woman put two hundred-dollar bills into Megan’s hand and practically shoved her towards the door.

“My husband will kill me for calling you instead of taking care of that myself. I have a souffle in the oven, I mean, REALLY! Let’s just keep it between ourselves, shall we?”

“Um, sure.” said Megan, pocketing the bills. Her hand was on the doorknob, but she turned at the last moment, Columbo style. “Oh, can you fill out an online survey? It would really help my CSA score.”

The woman sighed in exasperation, shoved another 20.00 into her hand, and pushed her out the door.  “I never saw you,” she said as the door closed with a definitive click. The smell of roasting duck followed Megan out to her car. She had just made $220.00 in a half hour. But more importantly, she had just saved a helpless woman from certain disaster. On her break. She felt like a superhero.

Megan went back to work at the library desk, stamping books in and out, sending out overdue notices, and cautioning patrons to “shh.” This was what her four-year degree in literature followed by two years of post-graduate work had earned her.  She was a glorified “shhh-er”.

The plumbing calls continued to come. For a while, she told the callers they had a wrong number. She always felt slightly guilty when she turned down their pleas for help. She even tried referring them to a local plumber that had pretty good online reviews.  Then one of the customers had called back to scream at her when the other company’s technician sprayed their bathroom with a shower of poo and didn’t clean it up thoroughly. That evening, Megan had gone over to that person’s home after work and cleaned everything, free of charge of course, to make it right.  Roy’s Plumbing just didn’t do business that way. The grateful homeowner insisted she take a 25.00 tip, anyway.

One week, there were a dozen plumbing calls, and Megan called the phone company to see if they could get to the bottom of it. It seemed the library had one incoming line that had once belonged to Roy’s plumbing, but had not been used by that now-defunct business in over four years. The telephone business service representative was very accommodating. Did Megan want that line discontinued? Hmm. Megan did not. Now that she knew which line it was, she could isolate those calls herself with the phone software. She thanked them and completed the simple programming steps so that all of Roy’s Plumbing’s calls went to line 1.

As the lead librarian, it was easy enough for Megan to instruct everyone else to never answer line 1. That was a dedicated line for the University, she told them. These calls were only for Megan, and if she couldn’t get to them, they should be allowed to go to voice mail for Megan to answer later. Then she recorded a Roy’s Plumbing out of office message, only for line 1. And thus, Roy’s Plumbing was resurrected from the dead. Each time she took a call on the Batphone, she googled the caller’s plumbing issue and watched several You -tube videos, jotting down notes. Within twelve months’ time, she had acquired a set of tools, a small truck she bought used on Craigslist, and regular customers. She could run credit cards, had a business license in the name of SHH Enterprises, and usually had a service call to handle every day after work. All of this was done in absolute secrecy. Moonlighting was frowned upon at the Library, and she had no actual license to be a plumber. Plus, if she was honest, the secrecy was part of the kick- ass adrenaline rush she got from each, and every call to Roy’s Plumbing. She had given her plumber identity the name Sue. A good, solid, plumber kind of name.

Megan always knew that sooner or later a plumbing call would come that all the googling in the world would not train her to handle. Even though she could rebuild, re-caulk, reset, or replace a toilet, install any faucet or fixture, unclog any drain, or snake any line.  So, as she prepared for her Roy’s Plumbing call that Wednesday, her heart was still pounding, her hands shaking a little as she changed into her Carhartt jumpsuit and traded her Celica for the little Toyota truck where her tools waited patiently for her to need them to complete her transformation from a mild mannered librarian into Super Plumber. She sent the customer a pre arrival text with her picture, and her eta, for their security. Had to protect people from scammers, after all!

She drove over to the address she had been given, clipped her nametag to her tool bag, and walked to the front door. Ringing the bell, she looked down at her clipboard as the door opened to check the customer’s name.

“Good evening, Mr. Bingham.”, she said, “I understand you have a clog. Can I take a look?” she asked in her best, authoritative, “I’m- the -expert- here” voice.

She got a weird vibe immediately. The guy was staring at her so intently that it made her already tense nerves jump to attention. Something about him….and also, what was that smell? (Plumbing calls were quite often accompanied by unpleasant odors, but this…this was different...)

He motioned towards the hall bathroom, and Megan walked in and saw the expected tub half full of standing water. That was normal in her line of work, so to speak. What wasn’t normal were the three large carp swimming around in the water. What the…?

Megan’s voice began to shake. “N-N-N No one said anything about any f- f -fish….” she stuttered.

Mr. Bingham’s eyes lit up and narrowed into little slits, creating a manic demeanor that reminded her of Jack Nicholson’s epic performance in “The Shining”.  Megan felt a cold chill run through her body. “Is it a problem?” he asked smoothly. “Their tank is out being resealed, so I’ve given them a temporary home here. I’m quite afraid they may have something to do with this clog situation. Let me get a bucket for you.” Mr. Bingham promptly disappeared, and Megan stood there, frozen in place, staring at the fish swimming in the tub.

Fish. FISH. Anything but fish.

Megan was deathly afraid of fish. It was a weird phobia, but their smell, the slimy cold texture of them, their weird eyes…. they were just simply horrible creatures. She shuddered, and every fiber in her being urged her to run for the door.  She pushed the paranoid thought out of her head that this creepy man somehow knew. How could he possibly know? For him to know anything about Megan the Librarian, he would first have to know that she WAS Megan the librarian, and not Sue, the Super Plumber. Impossible.

Mr. Bingham materialized with a red bucket, which he thrust into her hands. “Okay.” he said, “just let me know when you are finished. Good luck.”  Then, just before he turned, weird Mr. Bingham gave her a wink!

What ensued throughout the next two hours was like something out of a horror movie for Megan. Not being a real plumber, she had no idea if fish were often involved in bathroom repairs. For all she knew, it could be a very common occurrence that she had somehow managed to avoid for over a year. In any case, she didn’t dare call attention to the fact that she was not trained in fish. She donned her gloves and spent thirty minutes catching the squirming, writhing, slimy fish and putting them in the red bucket, where they proceeded to flop and splash stinky fish water all over the bath. Doing her best to ignore all that, she turned her attention to the drain, which was indeed, clogged in a manner the equal of she had never encountered. It came down to the snake, and as she pulled and twisted and maneuvered it through the drain line, she dislodged and pulled out an amazing array of items.  There was the normal hair, of course, and this was usually the heart of a bathtub drain issue. But there was also shredded newspaper, Play Doh, a couple sponges, a ragdoll, a pillowcase, some pork chop bones, some chewing gum, kitchen grease, used baby wipes, some potato and banana peels, and two hair rollers.  It was if somebody had shoved everything they could think of in the drain so that it could not be possibly unclogged by the average plumber.

But Sue was no average plumber. Exactly 90 minutes later, the drain ran clear and she was putting everything back together.

“Mr. Bingham’s sugary sweet voice came from down the hall. “Everything Okaaaay?” He sang cheerfully.

“Just cleaning up, sir, “Megan answered. She turned to survey the utter mess the bathroom was in. The carp has splashed water all over the place, and the bath stunk of fish. On the floor was the huge pile of items pulled from the drain, from which another putrid odor was being emitted. Not to be beaten, Megan rolled her sleeves up, and in another 45 minutes, the bath was sparkling clean again and the carp were happily swimming in a half bath full of water. Megan walked into the living room, where Mr. Bingham was in an easy chair reading a Stephen King novel.

“All finished, sir. I do have to charge a small extra fee for the …f-f-fish.” she stammered.

He looked surprised. “Really? All finished?” he repeated.  Well, let’s just have a look, shall we?” Mr. Bingham stood, and began to don a pair of white gloves, at the same time picking up a magnifying glass, and heading for the bathroom, with Megan trailing solemnly behind him.

First, he tried the drain. All clear. Why did he look so disappointed? Then he inspected every inch of the bath with the gloves and magnifying glass. Still finding nothing wanting, he turned and asked her “Were the fish a difficulty?” “Not really”, she replied. “It did seem like someone went to an awful lot of trouble to clog this drain. But I’ve seen worse.” (She hadn’t, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing that)

She thrust the clipboard towards him, saying, “If you could just sign here, and fill in your form of payment, I can be on my way...Mr.……? She paused, a question hanging in the air.

“You can call me Roy.”, he said, signing the invoice on the clipboard with a flourish. “And I believe this one is on the house.”