I’m in the wrong line of work!

Had I known that as a plumber I could make $150 for 3 minutes of work, maybe I would have….oh hell, who am I kidding? I would throw up the first time I had to plunge out someone’s disgusting toilet. It’s bad enough doing ours. The point is, though, it sure would be nice to pull in a $3,000 an hour salary.

I had to call a plumber in today to clean out the drain in my daughter’s bathroom. Apparently she sheds hair like a big Yeti, and the last time she took a shower in there, the amount of time it took for the water to drain out could be measured in DAYS rather than minutes.

When I called to schedule the service, I was given a window of 2:00 – 6:00 pm. While I completely understand that every job is different and therefore it would be impossible to narrow down exactly what time someone will arrive at my door, I still wonder why plumbers and electricians and the like only schedule service Monday through Friday between 9am and 5pm. If you want them to come in the evening or on a weekend when the average person is HOME FROM WORK, well that will cost you double! And if you need them on a holiday, forget it! That will cost you your firstborn and a kidney.

Anyway, I was forced to comply with the demands of the evil Plumbing Empire if I ever wanted to have a functional shower again, so I left work at 1:30 pm to ensure that I would be home in time. I made it with 7 minutes to spare. Looking around my home, I decided that I would be embarrassed for someone that dealt with other people’s crap for a living to see it in its current condition, so I started tidying up a little. That being done, I had a little lunch and watched some TV.

Around 3:30 pm, I got a phone call from “Shelly” at the plumbing company. Apparently they were having a little ‘scheduling issue’ and had to send some extra guys over to a dig site before they lost their daylight, and she wanted to know if it would be ok to reschedule me for…TOMORROW. Um, no Shelly, that’s not ok with me. I left work 3 1/2 hours early today so that I could be here for this. As far as you are concerned, that means I am either missing out on 3 1/2 hours of pay, or wasting 3 1/2 hours of my sick time. (She doesn’t need to know that I worked almost 3 hours of overtime on Tuesday and that I also brought some work home with me today.) I let her know that they could come tomorrow if necessary, but it would have to be after I got home from work, because I would not be taking any more time off. I got a phone call about an hour and a half later – from someone other than “Shelly” this time – saying that the plumber was on his way.

Here’s where it gets disgusting…and if you have a weak stomach, you may not want to scroll down to the end of this blog. Within 3 minutes, the plumber had removed the drain plug (it’s one of those that screws on, and you push it down to close the drain) and with a pair of pliers pulled out a ball of hair that may very well be larger than Dinah. I’ll let you decide. Scroll down, if you dare!


7 thoughts on “I’m in the wrong line of work!”

  1. She's just a growing girl. Can she help it that she was blessed with thick dark hair, and that the normal shedding of about 100 hairs a day eventually clogs up the drain? Considering that's the average hair loss, then I think that's a fairly SMALL pile of hair grunge!

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