For those of you who don’t read the comments

Sometimes people don’t dig into the comments section.  This was so funny I just had to post it.  It’s from our friend Troy who just spent a few days in THE MAD HOUSE I call home.

I just finished listening to a VM Mary left me yesterday – After I got done with her To-Do list – drain pipes eaten away compliments of some acid-wielding crazy lady, a couple of leaky faucets, a storm door closer torn from the door by some crazy lady’s crazy kids (supposedly), etc. I had left her an e-mail and a few notes yesterday explaining what I accomplished and what her family can do in the future to spare her pipes from that acid she loves to buy and use (drain cleaner that is) and hopefully avoid having to turn another snake or two lose in the drain pipes in the oldest part of her house. I started with the little wimpy snake a few days ago and even though my right-hand man KP thought it was really cool, it didn’t solve the problem. So I returned with the long power snake that you connect to a drill – KP thought this one was even cooler and KP, Mary and the cat all decided they needed to see this one in action!

Troy, the sink, the cat and the snake

Anyway, their desire to observe caused a serious dilemma for yours truly. You see rotary snakes are often the only way to clean old drain pipes, but the decision to use them is not free of several risks that can create much more serious problems for homeowners. You see, rotary snakes will almost always go down the pipe, but they don’t always come out. And if they get stuck really good, the drain will never work again. Which means if the homeowner has any intention of using the the sink, toilet and tub that all drain into the pipe that is now plugged with the stuck rotary snake, the only way for them to do so is to hire a carpenter to cut away the floors and walls where the old pipes run so they can be removed and replaced with new ones…

So there I was, sitting with the acid-wielding blogger, her camera, her son, and their cat all focused on my every move. All I could think about was how this situation was tailor-made for a good-hearted guy with considerable handyman skills and the desire to help out a neighbor in need to get a really good lesson taught to him re: why it is so important for contractors to be licensed and to carry insurance…. I could also hear my father’s words of wisdom in my ear – “make sure to take things REALLY SLOW when using a rotary snake as you are really F#@ked if you get it stuck in the pipe and can’t get it out.”

So should I give Mary the “buyer beware” talk that every licensed plumber would give her before proceeding? Or should I try the rotary snake VERY SLOWLY and see what happens??? I have to admit, if KP wouldn’t have been looking at me like I was about to save someone’s life with that damn snake, I would have probably told Mary “On second thought I think you should call a plumber or someone else who has better insurance – make that any insurance – than I do to do this for you.”

But KP was giving me that “your the man Mr. Auth” look that one can never walk away from so I pushed the trigger on the drill and began pushing the snake into the pipe. The deeper it went the bigger KP’s smile got and the more pictures Mary flashed. Little did they know that pushing the snake in is the easy part. Once it busted through the clog, I wiggled it around and then started pulling it out. It actually came out covered with black, greasy sewer pipe grime and the spring on the end was filled with all the crud that does such a great job of clogging drains. I breathed a sigh of relief and told KP and Mary I thought it worked – with produced a “Let me see that stuff on that spring” from KP and another string of flashes from Mary’s camera. I cleaned the snake up, put it back in my truck, put the drain pipes under the sink back together and couldn’t wait to fill the sink up with water and then open the stopper. The water created one of those tornado-like whirlpools like the drains in brand-new homes with brand new plastic sewer pipes do and the water disappeared so fast that Mary exclaimed “that drain hasn’t worked that well in all the years we’ve lived here”. Which made me smile from ear to ear. And then KP said “we need to tell PJ to quit putting her blonde hair down that drain” – which was the icing on the cake.

Who needs insurance when one has great neighbors and customers like Mary and KP…

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