Plumbing Hero

My husband, Ron, is a Renaissance Man. He is an artist, scholar, engineer, technician, computer wiz, disc jockey, chef, musician, and more. He is one of those people who can do push-ups with both his left brain and his right brain. He has mechanical ability and creative genius. Nonetheless, it has taken him many years to become the plumbing wizard he is today, without benefit of any formal plumbing education I might add. To illustrate how far he has come in his plumbing development, I ask you to compare the following two episodes in our married life.

In 1989, Ron and I both worked full-time and we had a two-year-old and a five-year-old. One evening after dinner, on a week night no less, Ron decided to repair a small plumbing leak he had noticed in the basement. He informed me he would need to turn the water to the house off for a few minutes.

“Can it wait until the weekend?” I ask. “I want to bathe the children and get them into bed.” He assures me it will only take a few minutes and he wants to do it now. He shuts off the water to the house.

The children take out their wooden blocks and build a tower. I stack the dinner dishes in the sink, unpack today’s lunch boxes and repack them for tomorrow, and feed the cats. The children sit on the couch with me and we read Green Eggs and Ham. “Where’s Daddy?” my son asks. Good question. Just how long ago did Daddy go down to the basement?

At that moment, Ron rips past us like the Roadrunner on a mission to humiliate Wiley Coyote. He is soaked from head to toe. He looks like he went swimming while wearing clothes. He offers no word of explanation, instead making a beeline for the cupboard in the front hallway where he keeps his tools. He yanks the doors open and pulls everything out, flinging sandpaper, steel wool, string, socket wrench set, electrical tape, and Makita over his shoulder. He is the very definition of “rummaging.”

“Is there a problem, Honey?” I ask, taking my life into my hands. The children observe, wide-eyed and speechless.

“No, no problem,” he replies as he races back out the door and downstairs with a monkey wrench in one hand and small tub of putty in the other.

I give the children a “bird bath” with bottled water, have them brush their teeth, and change them into their pajamas.

Meanwhile, Ron has whizzed through the house two or three more times, tracking water in puddles behind him, his sneakers sopping wet. I imagine a geyser erupting in my basement.

As I tuck the children into bed, I call to him on one of his mad dashes, “Sweetie, should I see if I can find a 24-hour plumbing service?”

“No!” he shouts, clearly annoyed at this suggestion, “I don’t need a plumber. See if you can find a 24-hour plumbing parts store.”

I read the children Who’s in Rabbit’s House, turn out the lights, and wish them sweet dreams. “Is Daddy OK?” they ask me.

“Yes, he’s fine,” I reassure them, “he’s just a little wet.”

With the children in bed, I get out the phone book and look for an all-night plumbing parts store. Is there such a thing?

Two hours and fifteen minutes since Ron first descended to the basement, he enters the kitchen and turns on the faucet. Water comes out. A miracle.

“You fixed it?” I ask.

“No, but it will hold until tomorrow,” he replies. I’m afraid to ask.

When he is good and ready, and dry, he explains that a simple repair went over to the dark side when an old fixture broke while he attempted to unscrew it. I still don’t totally understand how he managed to get the piping to last for the night with two potatoes, a roll of electrical tape, putty, and eighteen inches of baling wire.

That was then. This is now.

Fast forward to 2008. Ron and I return home after spending the weekend out of town attending the college graduation of our oldest child. I open the cupboard under our kitchen sink and discover a swamp. This is more than a one-bucket leak.

Ron had already crawled into bed to read the Sunday paper, exhausted from driving for four hours and suffering from an ear ache. I reluctantly inform him that we have a plumbing issue. “Should I turn the water to the house off for the night?” I ask.

Ron gets that Tim-Allen-Home-Improvements glint in his eye. Slowly he rises out of the bed. I half expect him to change into his Binford Tools T-shirt, the one that says “real men don’t need instructions,” as he prepares to demonstrate what separates the men from the boys.

I clear everything out from under the sink and lay down clean towels. Ron hands me the fluorescent hurricane lantern and instructs, “Cover me, I’m going in.” After considerable head scratching and chin rubbing Ron announces, “I think I have the parts necessary to fix this.”

I confess that I don’t often appreciate being married to a pack rat who squirrels away parts and pieces, tools and materials, nuts and bolts, enough to build a rocket ship in the basement if it becomes necessary for us to evacuate the planet on a moment’s notice. But on this particular evening, I experienced a heartfelt appreciation for the art of hoarding and my husband’s mastery of that art. He did have everything he needed for the repair. After twenty-five years of marriage, his closet has become the all-night plumbing parts store.

In less than an hour he expertly replaced the defective parts, turned the water back on, and restored order underneath the kitchen sink. No potatoes or baling wire this time. My plumbing hero has come of age. I’m a lucky gal.