Guns and Records

I have the coolest job sometimes.

Yeah, I know. I haven’t written anything in a while.

For those of you who decided not to read the “about” page of this blog, I’m a plumber. Most of what my company has me doing can be considered commercial service plumbing. This means, that if the office building in which you work has a leak on a plumbing pipe somewhere (and your maintenance personnel is either too lazy or inexperienced to fix it), I get the call. This goes for sewer stoppages, fixture installs/ changes, etc. This next story involves a couple of minor problems in a restaurant.

First, let me say that the movies/ porn industry have completely overexaggerated the “calling a plumber out and then banging him” scenario. If you ever meet a plumber that tells you a customer laid him, you have my permission to call shenanigans and tell him he’s full of shit. We don’t have sex with customers. Not only because some of us have a bit of a moral problem with that, but find me one attractive plumber. Not your husband or boyfriend, either. This story doesn’t end in sex, so if that’s what you’re waiting for- stop reading now.

Anyway, I got a call to a local DFW restaurant that had complaints of their soda fountain/ icewell drain being clogged, and a leak on a water tap-type fixture that customers used to get water with their meal. I arrived after my first call (approximately 9:15am), and found the restaurant to be dark and closed. This isn’t unusual, and most times there’s a manager in back somewhere waiting for my arrival. I cupped my hands around my face to look for any signs of life, and found none. I then knocked loudly on the glass entry doors to announce my prescence. Suddenly, someone sat bolt upright in a booth off to my right inside. I jumped a bit, and directed my attention to this person that I had awakened.

I was surprised to see a young asian girl (20-23 years old by my later approximation) wrapped in a sleeping bag with her index finger held up to tell me to “wait a minute”. I held up my hands to let her know that I was fine with waiting. Here’s where the story gets really surreal.

This young lady stood up from the booth and didn’t take the sleeping bag with her. She was dressed in a small t-shirt and a pair of blue, slightly sheer underwear. It was at this point that I literally took a step back from the doors. “Oh, holy shit,” I thought, “this is how it starts. This girl comes to the door, asks me if I’m here to snake her drain, and muted wah-wah guitar takes over.” There’s no winning for me here. I have a girlfriend, you see. A girlfriend that takes really good care of me. I’ve also seen Dateline NBC’s “To Catch A Predator”. This girl most likely being 16 is consuming most of my conscious thought at that moment, and she hasn’t even made it to the door yet.

“Can I help you?”, while still waking up.

“I’m with (random plumbing company), and I’m here to fix a couple of plumbing problems you guys have.” I reply.

“Oh, yeah. OK. I know what problems you’re talking about. C’mere, I’ll show you.” She beckons me to follow her.

Keep in mind that this restaurant has blinds covering their floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides, but the blinds are open. This girl, whose name I never got, is walking through the restaurant in just a “baby T” and her underwear. Also, try to understand that I’m still trying to come to terms with the fact that just seconds ago she was sleeping in a booth in the restaurant. Needless to say, I followed.

“Here’s the drain that’s stopped up.” She pointed to the soda fountain/ icewell combo behind the counter. Yes, there was water standing in the bottom but I didn’t give a shit. It was all I could do to concentrate on the icewell’s drain and not looking at her. It’s hard to be polite in that situation. How could any man, girlfriend or not, not turn and fucking stare right at her. I mean, what the fuck? Who sleeps in a restaurant? If you are the type of person to sleep over where you work, who sleeps in their underwear and t-shirt IN THE DINING AREA OF A RESTAURANT WHERE ALL OF THE WALLS ARE WINDOWS? All I could think of was, “Where are the fucking cameras? This has to be some kind of joke.” This was one trusting girl.

She then pointed out that the drain piping was in the cabinet below the icewell. As I crouched down and opened the cabinet to inspect the piping, she leaned over me to have her own look into the icewell above. Her underwear-ed crotch was now mere inches from my face.

“Is it still not draining? Nope. It’s not draining.” she says. I have hardly spoken a word since our introductions a couple of minutes ago. I said nothing then, either. Every bit of my mental faculties were being taken up with thoughts of “Don’t stare. Don’t look at anything but her face. Keep it together, Pappy. Keep your shit straight, man. She’ll realize she’s half-dressed, and correct it.”

I asked about the other problem the restaurant was having. She said she’d have to call her boss to get details on that. She disappeared in to the back office and left me to the icewell’s drain. “What the fuck was that?”, I asked myself. No sooner than I had begun to inspect the drain not draining, she reappeared from the office with details on the leak.

SHE STILL HADN’T PUT ON CLOTHES.

“My manager says that this tap is leaking over here.” She was pointing to a cabinet below a peninsula countertop that had a glass-filler in it. She then crouched down and opened the cabinet. For visual reference, she had taken up the position of a catcher on a baseball diamond. I made my way beside her and shined my flashlight under the cabinet, and sure enough- there was a bucket catching a water leak from the tap above. I told her I’d have a closer look at it after I fixed the icewell.

“Cool.”, she said.

She then went back to the booth she had been sleeping in when I arrived, and retrieved some clothing. I turned my attention back to the soda fountain. The next time I saw her, she was fully clothed for work. I fixed the leak below the counter, and cleared the icewell drain. Her manager arrived not long after I completed my work, and added a couple of other things to the job.

I returned the next day to work on the other stuff he wanted done, and “sleeping bag girl” was there. Funny thing- she acted as if she’d never seen me before. Maybe it was because I DIDN’T make any kind of pass at her or mention her state of undress the day before.

Either way, that was the closest I’ve ever been to banging a customer, and it wasn’t even that close.