First of all, it’s Codeman’s birthday on Sunday, which is Easter, and his dad, Roadie Pig, one of the classiest diarists around, would like everyone to wish him a Happy 17th Birthday in his Guestbook.
So be a sport and Sign it. Go ahead. I’ll wait for you to get back.
See. I waited.
Anyway’.
Owning a home is a mixed blessing.
For instance, from our $850 monthly house payment, when you consider interest, our exorbitant taxes from living in our prestigious neighborhood (read: we pay the taxes for the doctors and lawyers who live three blocks up the hill from our house), and the other stuff that shows up on my monthly statement, about $200 gets paid toward actually owning our house. If you think of that in fractions, I think I now have one of our eight closets paid off in full. I’m hoping to score the smallest bedroom by next year, but I’m probably optimistic.
So we’ve got that going for us. And the fugly living room carpeting with the mysterious dark umber stain in an impossible to hide place (unless we go for a completely original arrangement and move all of our furniture to the center of the room)’ that’s ours to replace anytime we can cough up the dough. But realistically, not until Chelsea passes into the great kitty hereafter because she’s been using it as her own personal shagadelic litter box for the last 8 months. Hey, she’s 19, folks, I’m not going to try and argue with a senile cat at this point and go the behavior modification route. I just buy lots of Febreze.
But there are some downsides. For instance, when the central air went out the day after our wedding three years ago, I would have direly loved to phone up a landlord and say, ‘Come. Now. Fix.’ But instead we had to call the air conditioning people and pay $150 for him to come and remove a damn June Bug from the circuitry.
I hate mofo June Bugs.
But I digress.
So recently, our plumbing is possessed. Last summer, Esteban attempted to perform an exorcism on our 55 year old plumbing by replacing every single pipe with new stuff. The result was that we lost almost all of our excellent water pressure (because the pipes were less than half their original dimension due to all of the built up goop inside) and somehow, it got hotter. I’m not sure how exactly it got hotter, but it did. Apparently, there is MORE water coming out now, but it comes out not as fast. I don’t get it either.
And, due to the fact that I married the human equivalent of a Chia Pet, our bathtub drain gets clogged quite frequently. Apparently, there is something in a home called a Trap and apparently, it needs to be cleaned now and then. Esteban has performed a goopectomy twice since we’ve owned the house. There is nothing that he has to do, including cleaning out three-month-old Tupperware that has begun to speak in tongues, nothing that he speaks of with such vehemence than cleaning out the Trap. Nothing.
So yesterday morning, I took a shower. Normally I take one at night and he takes one in the morning, but since I’ve had shorter hair, I don’t like to go to bed with wet hair because it dries funny. Also, it doesn’t take as long to blow dry so it’s not a big deal. So some mornings, I take a shower in the morning. Esteban always is a morning guy, but he goes to work later than I do, so it’s no big.
By the time I had finished my shower (and contrary to popular belief, not all women take hugely long showers. Mine take roughly 5-7 minutes, including leg-shaving time. When I had long hair, I took about ten minutes.) I was standing in water past my calves. And it hadn’t drained when I left for work. I left the shower curtain open so that he would see that it was full and not blindly step into it, because that would really piss him off.
I forgot my inhaler at home and my asthma has been pretty bad this week, so I left work around 10 o’clock to run home and get it. The tub had only drained about two inches of the water. And I knew that Esteban hadn’t taken a shower because the cap from my shaving cream was floating in the water.
This was bad.
This morning, Lumberjack Neighbor woke us up at roughly 7:40 A.M. by splitting logs seven feet off our bedroom window. He uses physical labor to combat his sexual frustrations. So I guess you could say that he uses wood to prevent wood. (teehee’ I know it’s so juvenile, but it made me laugh) We managed to fall back asleep at some point and then woke around 9:00 a.m. Then we lounged in bed and I made the weekly Plea for Pancakes. Esteban acquiesced and the plan was that he was going to clean The Trap, and then we’d shower and go out for Pancakes.
With much disgust and intestinal fortitude, he tromped down to the basement in his underwear. The Trap is located in the ceiling of the basement and being naked apparently lessens the retch factor when the sludge drips down your arms and settles in your armpits.
He was not in a very good mood, let me tell you. I could hear him routing around in the plumbing, cursing at Tilly, and in generally getting more and more surly. He tried a couple of things, and then tromped back upstairs.
His hands were the blackest, foulest things I’ve ever seen in my life. And the stench. I cannot even describe the stench. It was as though Satan himself belched a big hot sauerkraut and boiled egg burp right in your face.
Esteban’s face was contracted in a constant grimace of revulsion. And his beloved wife?
Well, it was just so horrible and unreal that I’ just couldn’t stop laughing. Yep. I’m a laugher. I can’t help it. It was just so horrible and disgusting, so unbelievable, it cracked me up. I crack up when people puke too. One of the reasons that the puking skits on Jackass make me laugh so hard.
That, as you can imagine, did not improve Esteban’s mood in the least, standing there in his underwear with black slime dripping down his elbows, staring at me, giggling insanely.
He stood in the shower and I squirted a bunch of anti-bacterial soap onto his hands, and that removed some of the crap, but not all of it. We turned on the water and he rinsed, turning the water black’ the water pooling around his ankles.
Still not unclogged.
He went down into the basement and tried it again. He determined he needed a drain snake or something. He couldn’t find ours, so he sent me to the hardware store (I can’t imagine why he couldn’t go himself, being that he was in his underwear with the Black Hands of Putrification). I bought a snake. I thought about making a run through Starbucks but decided that he would not be pleased if I traipsed through the door with a mocha and a smile.
He snaked the drain. Again with the standing in the tub. Again with the squirting of the antibacterial soap. Again with the rinsing.
Again with the pooling black water.
By this time, Esteban was furious. He called Ward and June, who live roughly 15 minutes away, and told them that he’s coming over there to use his shower. I saw my visions of pancakes drift slowly away in a river of maple syrup. Then he gruffly demands that I call the plumber to come out TODAY, despite higher Saturday rates, and fix the tub. Then he stalked around shouting questions at me about the location of his jeans, his hat, his sanity.
I dialed the plumber and made arrangements for someone to come and look at our drain this afternoon. The minimum charge would be $65, which was a bargain compared to the flowers down the disposal incident last year, which cost $150, not including emergency room deductibles.
As I was on the phone with the plumber, I heard the drain go ‘Glurk glurk glurk’.
Esteban heard it too. He rushed in and ran water in the tub. It drained, no problems. I called the plumber back and canceled our request.
Esteban hopped into the tub and removed a big black hair wad from the corner of the tub and dropped it into the wastebasket. I made a face and then thanked him for taking care of that.
‘Oh that?’ He said. ‘That’s nothing compared to the things I’ve seen this morning. I would put that in my MOUTH rather than touch that septic crap again.’ And that sent me into a peal of giggles again.
Remarkably, he was still game for breakfast after he had his shower. He’s from hearty stock. I was only able to swallow a few bites of omelet and half a pancake, mostly due to the fact that I knew a blackened disgusting tub was waiting for me at home. And there was nothing like bending over scrubbing out a 50-year-old tub when you’ve got cramps. Not a thing like it in the world. That’s what I get for giggling like a fool.
Sometimes, apartments sound really nice.
Esteban: What did you do today?
Weetabix: I cleaned the tub, the toilet, the mirrors, the sink’
Esteban: The tub must have taken a long time.
Weetabix: It did’sorted all the socks, most of the laundry, fed the cats, watered the plants, did dishes, put away 42 of your hats’
Esteban: Oooh, you found my hats?
Weetabix: Yes.
Esteban: Where were they?
Weetabix: An easier question would be ‘where were they not’. Start putting them away.
Esteban: Where are they now?
Weetabix: Away.
Esteban: Where is that?
Weetabix: I think I understand the problem now. They are on the hat rack.
Esteban: Ooh, that’s so cool. I have hats again.
Weetabix: Um’ the hats’ put away your work stuff, put away your clothes, put away your shoes, put away the books you left out, fixed your dresser drawers which were all screwed up, cramped up, took Advil, swore at my gender, hated being a girl’
Esteban: Your eyebrows are growing back.
Weetabix: (getting a little irritated)I know, I need to pluck.
Esteban: You know, normal people have thick eyebrows. They’re not like’ a millimeter thin or something.
Weetabix: (silence, with lips pressed together tightly, uterus constricting in pain)
Esteban: You know, ‘ you kind of look like Spock.
Weetabix: (lips are now white from being pressed together)
Esteban: I mean’ I’m just saying’. What, honey’ what?
Weetabix: You. Don’t. Like. My. Eyebrows???
Esteban: (the gears turn, slowly but surely in his head as he processes’ housework’ uterus’ eyebrows’ bad) No’. no’ I didn’t say that.
Weetabix: (voice even and calculated, much like a lawyer during cross-examination) Why don’t you like my eyebrows?
Esteban: Nothing’. I said nothing’ pretend it didn’t happen’ that portion of time was erased and all is right with the world and you are the light of my life.
Weetabix: (fixes him with her gaze, Spock eyebrow raised)
Esteban: And did I mention that I cleaned the Trap today? In my underwear?
Weetabix: Uh-huh.
Esteban: I love you, honey.
Weetabix: Uh-huh.
