Plumber Bum

Week One in the life of Mrs. Bevans...

Monday - I think the toilet is clogged, and when you run the bathroom sink, the toilet bubbles. I'm miserable because in my head I'm like, seriously? We just got married! Could I not have waited a couple weeks before plugging the toilet?! But I'm actually so sure that I didn't, so why why why is it plugged and I have to now tell my new husband that it is?! He's never going to believe me that I didn't plug it. And he didn't. So we buy a plunger and Trent goes to work. Then I hear him say, oh that is nasty. Oh great. I go to check on him and what do I discover is nasty? Thick brown liquid backing up into our tub through the overflow - that is nasty. Time to talk to the landlady. Good news is the plumbers were actually really prompt and came right over that night. Trent reallly had to go though so he was heading out right before they came; before he left though, he comes over and hands me a knife and says, "keep this close by while the plumbers are in the house." How sweet. Thanks hunny. After hours of work and going to get a longer snake and plenty of mess, they're done! Thanks boys. Oh wait, maybe we'll hold off on that thank you until we look in the bathroom. For the record - plumbers don't clean up after themselves. And our bathroom looked like civil war gone potty style. Trent is a good man though, he scrubbed and cleaned for over an hour. I love him.

Tuesday - I shower and the tub slowly fills up over the course of it and takes a couple hours to drain after. I also discover that the toilet still isn't fully flushing and it still bubbles when you run the bathroom sink. Super.

Thursday - My landlady asks if I'll be around for the plumbers to come. I tell her I need to go grocery shopping at some point, but I can stay in for a while so they can come. Plumbers come back. I explain what's happening and they get to work. They work for hours. And I mean HOURS. Finally the one guy comes and tells me they've discovered the problem... some dumb plumber broke one of their big metal snakes off in the pipes and left it there. Seriously? Who just leaves a giant metal snake in apartment pipes?! Whoops? Those things are designed to fill the majority of the pipe so that it can push through whatever is clogging the pipe. But no big deal leaving it behind, everything will just flow around it, no problem. FALSE! Plumbers. Fools. So we'll have to come back another time to fix it... with a jack hammer. WHAT?! I mean, oh okay, sounds super. I cleaned up.

Friday - Landlady knocks on my door again, will you be here for the plumbers? She has to go out. Oh, well, I still need to go grocery shopping actually, but okay if they're coming right now then okay I can go later. One prop I will give the plumbers is that they show up when they say so. One knock I'll give them is that they don't. Knock that is. You know the plumbers have been to your house too often when they feel at home enough to just walk right in. When I'm not dressed. Oh hey guys... as I scramble to get out of my silky nighty and into real clothes. That was at 1pm. Hours go by. No jack hammer, but also no progress. They try magnets and hooks and even take a couple of my metal hangers, but still just nothin comin. Sometime before dusk they leave and take forever to come back. Turns out one of the plumbers was jewish and couldn't work late. It's Friday. So plumber number two has to get another guy to help him finish. When we left at 7:30pm for southern alberta, they were still here, knelt over the hole where our toilet is supposed to be, thredding my coat hangers, watching the snake not budge on their little digital camera feed. Are we just leaving to random mid 20s guys in our apt with all our stuff? Don't worry, they say, we have a key. Oh super, well in that case, have a good weekend!

The good news: Sunday night we came home to a fully functioning bathroom.
The bad news: We had to clean up. Again.

I officially spent more time with the plumbers than my husband this week.
Married life is going to be fun.