Do you know what we have at our house now? TWO WORKING TOILETS.
People, that is like winning the lottery or having a new baby or Christmas morning. We spent almost two weeks with six human beings, five animals, and one toilet, which is bad math. I am too old to be hopping up and down on one foot in front of a closed door, hollering for someone to hurry, and yet that was happening! Dreadful. Let’s not even go into the number of hours the shower was running per day. (You know you are in trouble when you figure out how to pick the lock with your fingernail so you can stealthily sneak in and JUST PEE while one of those endless teenager showers is happening… and God forbid THEY HEAR YOU and begin shrieking from the shower about privacy and invasion and future therapy and barbaric, neanderthalic parents…)
But now there are two! toilets! again! Caloo Calay O Frabjous Day, she chortled in her joy!
And I remembered one of my favorite poems by Garrison Keillor.
The Plumber is the Man, Garrison Keillor
When the ice comes and the snow and it’s twenty-eight below
And then the temperature begins to fall
And they hear the moan and whine of that frozen water line
Then the plumber is the man who saves them all.
O the plumber is the man, the plumber is the man.
Down into the cellar he must crawl.
He is not sleek and slim but they don’t look down on him
For the plumber is the man who saves them all.
When the toilet will not flush and the odor makes you blush
And you cannot use the sink or shower stall,
Then your learning and your art slowly start to fall apart
But the plumber is the man who saves it all.
O the plumber is the man, the plumber is the man.
With his wrenches and his pipes he comes to call.
They can take their sins to Jesus but when their water freezes
Then the plumber is the man who saves them all.
Oh, I know that in one’s youth that beauty, justice, truth,
Seem to be what life is all about,
But when the facts are faced, you realize that life is based
On water coming in and going out.
They don’t let him in their club cause he never dresses up
And he doesn’t go for tennis or handball,
Or Mozart or Chopin, but when it hits the fan
Then the plumber is the man who saves them all.
O the plumber is the man, the plumber is the man.
In his vest and rubber boots and overalls.
So don’t turn up your nose at the aroma of his clothes
For the plumber is the man who saves us all.
Thank God for the plumber.
-Katie
Redbud Drive 