WARNING: This post contains language not appropriate for children. And some adults, if you're prissy like that.
Oh my God. OH MY GOD. Yesterday wins the prize for the worst home improvement project ever. The scene? The Pit of Despair. The characters? Me and Henry the Plumber. The action? It sucked, y'all.
All we wanted to do was rip out a pipe leading to the kitchen so we could have more than a trickle of cold water in the kitchen sink. That's all. One small pipe.
It took four hours. FOUR HOURS.
I spent those four hours in my rubber boots in the cistern (not the outside cistern that we cleaned--there's one in the cellar, too). The cistern that has to be reached by crawling through a two-foot-high slit in the wall four feet off the ground, requiring some contortions and handstands on a stepladder that a 70-year-old plumber and a lazy 28-year-old girl should not have to perform. The cistern that is totally dark, festooned with cobwebs, and smells like a tomb. The cistern that I have publicly admitted, on this website in fact, that I try to not even look at, much less spend a significant amount of time in.
It was not a good time.
I yanked on pipe wrenches, whacked things with hammers, dodged mummified spiders, pulled some totally disgusting rags out of a hole in the wall (Blackrock: The Birthplace of the Cob Job!), held the light for Henry the Plumber, and breathed into my lungs particulates that I would rather not know about. For four hours. I didn't eat lunch, I didn't sit down, I didn't see daylight or breathe fresh air for four hours.
But! That miserable pipe was broken in the end, and we now have a veritable torrent of cold water to the kitchen sink. And it only took (all together now!) four hours. Not counting the time it took Henry the Plumber to actually hook up the new pipe and get everything in working order after I took my sorry, whiny self to the shower. That was another three hours. Three hours that I spent sitting on the couch with a huge cup of water and not in the cistern, thank you Jesus.
I think it's time I got a pay raise.
8 comments:
You are a brave, brave woman! I make John take care of the spiders in our apartment. There is absolutely no way I would crawl into that cistern. No way!!
Yes, but how long did it take?
Just kidding. You are brave, sister. A brave 28-year-old woman, not a lazy 28-year-old girl (although I laughed out loud at that one!).
I hope you are paying the plumber a lot of money -- so he can turn around and pay you for your apprentice work.
I agree with Ms. Picket... I hope you're getting paid for this! Because a 50% raise of NOTHING???? Still Nothing. :(
Although I think I was creeped out enough for both of us. Aren't dead bodies stored in cisterns? If not, they should be. Not that I have a surfeit of dead bodies. just thinkin out loud...I'll be going now.
What, no bats? How bad could it be with no bats? Pfft, you're getting soft in your old age. (Says the guy rolling over the decade-ometer today.)
Believe me, I was thanking Mary and all the saints that there were no bats down there. The possibility had occurred to me.
And happy birthday to you, Drew! What are you, 60? 70? :-)
I believe I know where Jimmy Hoffa ended up ...... I'm puttin' my money on your cistern. Sounds like a great hiding spot!
You're funny.
o0oo oo0o
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