Curmudgeon’s Non-Vacation: Part 7: Social Capital

I’ve said many times before, I’m a bit of a loner. I’ve lived more or less everywhere without growing attached to any of it. I happily ride alone, hunt alone, camp alone, sail alone, and drink alone. Attachment to particular physical parts of society eludes me. People from where I grew up were all “Springfield is better than Shelbyville” but I was “this town is much like any other, adios”. I blew town as soon as humanly able.

This means I don’t have the deep well of social capital which comes from long residence and deep connection to any specific society. It’s a resource most people use to great impact; often without even knowing it.

Which brings me to my second point. I want people to be happy and fulfilled but I’m prickly. Even my best warmest thoughts come out like less like I’m a huggable Curmudgeon and more like I’m a serial killer who needs to switch to decaf. I’m not complaining. It has its benefits. Even vegans leave me alone.

Which is why Mrs. Curmudgeon was calling plumbers. She has social capital. People know her. She knows them. They know me too, but I’ve forgotten their name, have no idea who they are, and would rather talk to their dog.

Mrs. Curmudgeon is friendly in a way that I can’t manage. In my ideal world I’d call 1-800-PLUMBER, rattle off my Visa number, and a highly skilled plumber would arrive (possibly by helicopter) to bill me but also do a good job. Would I care who this plumber is? Nope. I wouldn’t care if the plumber is gay, missing a leg, is painted green, speaks only Swahili, likes disco, eats tofu, thinks Sanka is good coffee, or speaks to Martians. We don’t have to be friends or share a worldview. So long as the plumbing is good that’s all I’d want of a plumber. (I have some limits, if a plumber shows up in an AMC Gremlin and demands I use specific pronouns I’ll throw rocks at the car.)

What I really want is Harry Tuttle, Heating Engineer.

Back in reality Mrs. Curmudgeon was using that foreign magic that I’ll never understand, charm. Unlike me, she speaks human… fluently!

After a dozen plumbing companies didn’t answer their phones she called a guy we’d hired like a decade ago. Even back then he was older that dirt. I think he was working under the table part time… I didn’t ask. I don’t remember what he looked like or anything else. He helped me install a tub. Maybe he really was Harry Tuttle.

Anyway the nice old guy answered the phone, but explained he’d retired long ago and had debilitating illnesses and was very old. I, having the human interaction ability of a sea urchin, would have said “oh that’s a bummer, I hope you get better” and I’d have clicked off the phone instantly. I’d be halfway thorough the next call within 30 seconds. In my defense, I’d have meant good wishes, I don’t hate people, I just sound like it. But I also would have missed the opportunity to talk with a duffer who might need a conversation.

Mrs. Curmudgeon has a lot better human skills than I. She chatted with the old guy for a while and I think they both had a nice discussion. (I was in the basement fucking up pipes at this time. I only have a second hand idea how the conversation went.)

Anyway nice old geezer guy gave Mrs. Curmudgeon the name of not a plumber but a well driller. Like he’s got a drilling rig and cores into the ground installing wells. Calling him a plumber is like calling an Optometrist an Oncologist. Very different skill sets. I suspect the idea was that anyone who drills a well might work with new houses and thus know the number of a plumber who installs stuff in new houses. How would I know the train of logic involved? This is human stuff… I was in the basement thinking about wrenches.

Turns out well drilling guy was a very interesting fellow. In lieu of his actual name lets call him Bill. Bill is also as old as dirt but not yet debilitated by age as the Biden-esquely suffering retired plumber. He wasn’t busy drilling because it’s winter and things are frozen… and also I think he sold his drill equipment and is also retired.

Except men who are useful are never truly retired. His daughter runs a coffee shop in a little farm village a zillion miles away. She, like everyone, has staffing issues. So she calls Dad. Our stoic helpful heroic Bill, was stuck clearing tables and otherwise “waitressing” at the coffee shop. This meant he was busy until about sunset.

After a full shift at a totally important job (coffee is important!) Bill, who is not a plumber and is no longer a well driller and who is absolutely retired and who had worked slinging coffee and eggs all day, got in his truck and drove to my house.

God bless Bill!

Bill arrived while I was still glaring at my two new wrenches. I showed him my plumbing problem. He took one minute to assess the situation and pronounce his ruling:

“Meh.”

I take that to mean Bill gave me a solid C- on my workmanship. Which I deserve.

He removed everything I’d done, which wasn’t hard because nothing was tight. Then he looked at the 2′ extension I’d painstakingly installed some decade plus ago.

“This is shit.”

I agreed. It sucked. I explained that was the plastic pipe coming from the well and it’d been a stone cold bitch to install that 2′ extension many years ago. Before I finished this, Bill had whipped out a knife and cut it off. I remembered the struggle to install it and had organ failure… but I masked the symptoms. There was a real live Plumber on site and he surely knew what he was doing. Also, every second probably cost a fortune.

The crawl space is terrible and the pipe goes literally through the area of just one cinderblock. But Bill went to the nearest human sized access, and by human sized I mean a Chihuahua could get through it, and he plunged face first into God knows what. Soon there was nothing but his boots and ass crack visible in the land of the living. The rest of him was in the alternate universe of my inaccessible crawl space. I think plumbers are secretly shaped like Elastigirl.

Somehow, and I’m still wondering this myself, he got himself back out of there. Having verified whatever he verified, he attacked the scene of my battle from 10 years ago.

Bill heated the location of my battle with his Bernzomatic and SCHLORPED new pipe on the end like nobody’s business. I almost wanted to applaud!

Looking at the bits of leftover plumbing that he tossed aside, I realized the hunk of “plastic pipe” I’d installed back in the day was actually a rubberish material and slightly different than the hunk of plastic pipe that I’d bought at the hardware store that morning. The plastic pipe had been quite SCHLORP-ABLE and that was a big deal.

Finally! After all these years, I learned why the long ago battle had been so annoying.

Pipe ain’t pipe. I got the wrong stuff a decade ago. I’m still emotionally scarred from that mistake!

After that, Bill made short work of the stuff I’d been messing with. I noted with some satisfaction that his final act was to use two nice pipe wrenches, just like the one I’d bought, to reef shit together like Godzilla won’t be able to open that pickle jar. At least I’d been on the right track.

In fact, all the shit I’d bought at the hardware store that morning was used. I’d gotten the right stuff. I may have made mistakes but I wasn’t 100% clueless.

Having finished in just a few minutes, Bill assessed the maze of pipes that is the rest of that area of my house. I have EVERY plumbing era represented there. There’s copper from the old days when copper pipes and copper pennies roamed free. There’s PVC pipe, some very old, some installed by yours truly. I can do wonders with PVC. There’s PEX, installed by real modern plumbers who are pretty much all members of the one true faith of PEX.

“Where’s that go.” He pointed to an old copper pipe.

“Um, it’s embarrassing to say this, but nowhere.” It’s true. I think what I call a laundry room was built sometime after the core house and it served most of a human lifetime as some farmer’s introduction to the exciting world of indoor plumbing. It’s funny to think that some dude in America had to learn to flush in maybe the 1920’s or 1930’s when Rome had it figured out in 300 AD. I’m guessing indoor plumbing in my location came after Prohibition and before AM radio. The world advances unevenly.

After several decades, the old copper lines were de-activated and new PVC lines sent to newly built parts of the house. This was probably in the 1970’s.

“That pipe has no outlet?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve been here a long time and I don’t know how to solder copper. It was done at least that long ago and probably before I was born.”

“It’s leaking.”

“What! Nah. The only leak is the input side of the pressure tank. At least today.”

“Leak.” He held a finger to the tiniest drop on the old copper line. It was wet, but so was everything in the vicinity.

“But…” I looked at the wall behind it. There was a rust stain on the concrete. It must have been an imperceptible leak but also it had been going on for a while. How long? Had that iron stain always been on the wall? I started scratching at the wall… as if it was forming stalactites in real time. Now that I think of it, at the very slow speed of stalactite, that’s exactly what was happening.

Bill beamed. “You see it. It’s leaking.”

Somehow I was pleased that Bill noticed that my simian brain was at least trying to catch up.

“You sure it goes nowhere?” Bill was reaching for a copper pipe cutter.

“Yes? Um… no. I’m not sure of anything today.”

Shrugging his shoulders Bill dove back into Chihuahua land. I held a flashlight and wondered if he’d find a dead skeleton or a live badger in there. He emerged covered with dirt but not badger eaten. “It goes nowhere. Man, your house is old. How old is this place?”

“Older than indoor plumbing. I know that.”

With that, Bill cut out the copper tubing, and about 3′ of PVC that was serving to link an obsolete old brass T fitting with mystery tubing to an otherwise functional house.

I was delighted! I like when leftover legacy shit is removed! My house’s utilities have as much cruft as Microsoft code and every foot of useless pipe removed is a cause of celebration.

It took both of us working together to remove the copper. It was about 9′ of bendable copper tubing that terminated in a gate valve that probably pre-dates the Reagan revolution. The gate valve, closed of course, had been lying in my crawlspace like a crusty old IED; charged with water, pressurized, just itching for an excuse to freeze and spring a leak. I’m lucky the old valve held that long!

I thanked Bill a thousand times and cut him a check for half what he was worth. Bill did not rake me over the coals. Bill is a hero.

Bill apparently sells water softeners as part of his defunct (?) well drilling business. I mentioned that my water softener is shot. I suggested I buy one from him in the summer when it’s warmer and easier to install stuff. Bill agreed, or I could buy one from anywhere else, he wasn’t trying to make a sale. He explained that he was retired.

“A man who knows how to fix stuff is never retired. He’s too valuable. I really appreciate you fixing this for me.”

Bill smiled, packed his wrenches and was about to go. “Well I can set you up with a water softener in the summer. I’ll sell one if you’ll buy one. But I’m retired.”

Then his phone rang. He glanced at it and shook his head gently.

“Slinging coffee tomorrow?”

“Yep, morning shift. My daughter can’t find decent help. Retirement is busy.”

With that, my personal version of Harry Tuttle drove away. I hope I can find him this summer. If he doesn’t answer, I know where to go get coffee. He’ll be there.

And that’s the story of my Non-vacation.