Saturday, December 25, 2004

Last night, on Family Holiday Eve (which I believe is also referred to as Christmas Eve by some religious sects), our kitchen sink exploded.

Maybe "exploded" is too strong of a word. What is it called when pipes under your kitchen sink mysteriously separate and spew water and soon-to-be-rotting food all over the cabinet and kitchen floor? Eh, let's go "exploded".

So, the kitchen sink exploded just as we were about to cook up dinner. Merry Family Holiday Eve! If there's one thing that could make me enjoy the holidays even more, it's got to be combustible plumbing. Alas, only a herculean effort by the toilet bowl to retain structural integrity prevented this from being the finest Family Holiday ever. Mighty porcelain, why must thou mock me?

As my mother-in-law contemplated what it meant to cook dinner without a working sink, my wife hopped onto the Yahoo yellow pages, looking for a nearby plumber who might be willing to sacrifice his Christmas Eve for our Family Holiday Eve. She spoke with a number of plumbers who basically said the equivalent of "no room at the inn", before she stumbled across something amazing.

Apparently one of our neighbors, who lives about 10 houses down, is a plumber. Somehow the Yahoo yellow pages listed a phone number which was in his house because he answered the damn phone at 6:00pm on Christmas Eve. After we explained how we found his number, and why we were calling, he informed us that he refused to help us as a plumber, but would be quite willing to come over and help us as a neighbor. So, not much later, our new friend Jeffrey the plumber neighbor, came over and checked out our sink.

He rigged a surprisingly sturdy solution out of carefully cut plastic bottles and good old fashioned neighborly know-how. He also poked around the faucet and figured out why our water pressure was so low. After these few minutes of handy genius, he departed, refusing to take any money for the visit.

Wow. I owe this guy.

I was, however, a wee bit miffed at having my grinchiness interrupted.

Merry Family Holiday, everyone. For those of you who celebrate Winter Present Tree Day, merry that too. For the rest of you, merry other stuff as well.

5 comments:

Tasty said...

Now, that, my friend, is a hell of a neighbor. And a totally cool Family Holiday Winter Present Tree Day Christmas-spirited gift.

Mike said...

Agreed. I feel like I should offer him my first-born child. Or take his. Whichever he prefers.

Amy S. Petrik said...

what nice kind neighborly thing to do. my next door neigbor called me up Xmas morning on my cell and bitched to me that she cannot pay for association dues. i said we will cut off your water and put a lien on her house. it was afterall, Christmas.

Mike said...

Inky,

Oh, you did not! I read that entry in your blog. You were all polite and crap.

Amy S. Petrik said...

You are correct Mister Mike. Beth and I co-wrote a note on Dec. 27th and told her about the water and the lien. So we did wait one festive day. I saw Rosemary yesterday in the parking lot. She had no clue to who I was. I love my neighbors. :) Cheers, inky