Super Plumber

An unexpected $1000 dollars appeared in our hands right before my husband’s winter vacation. Our friends would’ve taken that as sign to head off to Mammoth to go skiing, but we decided to spend it on a home fixit project.

We talked it over and decided to use the money to replace all the 60-year old faucets in our house. Off we went to the plumbing store. By some miracle, we were so much in agreement as to which faucets we liked, a stranger might’ve thought we were young and in love.

Now we needed a great plumber. My friend Linda had recently hired a genius named Albert Trejo to solve her gnarly problem with a stubborn reverse osmosis system. I called him, and he was available to install our faucets that Wednesday.

Not only did he do a fine job, he hummed on tune while he worked. A cheerful plumber is a rare and beautiful thing. When a pipe broke off in the wall, Albert said, “Son of a beehive,” but he soon solved every challenge, and we had new faucets.

I’ve been on the planet long enough to know plumbing projects typically cost twice as much as predicted. When Albert turned in his bill it was reasonable. We were only a few hundred over budget.

Water whooshed out of the new faucets in a lovely stream. We brushed our teeth several times just for the excuse to use these gorgeous fixtures. This was much better than freezing with our friends in the snow.

Then, when we walked the dogs before bedtime, we noticed a river in the gutter in front of our house. We had a leak, and, apparently, it was not a small one.

This was not going to be cheap, but I knew Albert would come to our rescue.

I left a message, and he called first thing the next morning with a jaunty, “What’s up?”

When he arrived to assess the situation, his best guess on the massive leak was when we’d turned water off to install the faucets, it’d put extra pressure on rusty underground pipes, and that’d caused one or more blowouts. We wouldn’t know the answer as to which pipes until we’d dug them out. He offered a crew at a cost matching the national budget…or we could dig ourselves.

We were already over budget, so we opted for putting our own shovels to work. Albert would come back Saturday to cap off any leaking pipes we’d found.

Meanwhile we were without running water in the house. Carrying buckets is not as much fun as they make it out to be in Zen literature.

Those new faucets seemed to mock us. Not only are plumbing jobs fraught with potential problems, they have a sense of irony.

On Saturday morning, Albert called. “My wife’s working all day, and I’ve got kid duty till she’s back.” Nevertheless, he showed up near sunset and capped the leaking sprinkler lines my husband and I’d dug out. I figured we’d solved the problem.

When we turned the water on, the soil in the middle of the yard began burbling. The leak was still alive, and now it was mad.

Our main water supply line appeared to be leaking. Albert warned us replacing it could be expensive. He showed us where to continue digging. “Call me when you find the leak.”

The soil near the new spout was supersaturated, sticky clay. We dug like maniacs until we uncovered another leaking irrigation pipe tied into the supply line, at the meter. Oh the things they did back in the good old days.

It was already past sunset, and Albert had worked long hours Monday through Saturday. Nevertheless he showed up in his church clothes on Sunday to look at what we’d dug up.

He couldn’t cap off that third leak until late the next day, because he already had several emergency jobs on his Monday schedule. My husband and I were tired of carrying buckets, but others were even worse off.

True to his word, our plumber showed up Monday afternoon. The leaky pipe was stubborn, but a giant wrench and Albert’s massive finesse budged it. When the water was restored, there was no leaking…a real woo-hoo moment.

Living without running water for 116 hours offered us new perspective on the miracle of plumbing. As a result, we’re so grateful for guys like Albert who fix our plumbing catastrophes. They are true heroes.

Let us sing their praises.