After the drama of yesterday’s flat hair we wonder how much more Stephanie and the cowboy can take? HOW. MUCH. MORE? They have now entered their 50th hour without working indoor plumbing. FIFTY HOURS. That’s roughly 3,000 minutes suffering in the desert of their shared abode.
As the day begins, Stephanie washes her hair in the sink with a pitcher of tepid water. Ironically, what seems tepid for brushing one’s teeth translates to glacier water on the scalp, giving new meaning to the term “Brain Freeze” (cue Foreigner’s “Cold As Ice”). However, the cold water washing allows for adequate blow drying and ample hair volume, narrowly averting what could have been a tragic second Bad Hair Day.
COMMERCIAL BREAK
Meanwhile, back at the chemical plant, the cowboy takes off an hour early to go to the chiropractor for his aching back. If a supervisor calls him in for overtime this week, he will have to work the first hour at his regular hourly pay. Regular pay. But it’s a risk he has to take.
The sound of his groaning and back popping at the chiropractor’s leaves us wondering: Will the cowboy be able to bend his body into the needed position for fixing the pipes? For that matter, will he even be able to take off his steel-toed boots to put on his “crawl under the house” boots without help?
Simultaneously, Stephanie makes a crucial stop at Plumb-o-Rama. Will they have the needed parts in stock? 
Will she be able to discern PVC from galvanized iron? Can she manage the right length and thickness?
(That’s what she said.)
Finally, both of them home with proper parts and proper boots, it’s back into the creepy crawl space for the cowboy. Only this time, he accesses it from the vent at the front of the house – which, although nearer the leak, is a MUCH smaller, much shallower vent than before – causing the cowboy crucial claustrophobic hesitation.
Will he be able to muster the courage to crawl?
Hesitantly, he enters the darkness headfirst, knowing the tight turnaround may totally prevent re-exit through the same vent. Once under, he calls for Stephanie. He needs her to go outside to the shut off valve and make the counter-clockwise turn to discern the exact location of the leak.
Stephanie rushes to her closet to search for the right pair of “going out to the meter” shoes and makes the 130-ft trek out to the yard. She twists the valve on. (cue “Twist & Shout”) No sooner does she turn the water on than the cowboy yells for her to turn it back off!
Frustration and confusion! Not only does he want her to turn it back off, he also wants her to wait. WAIT? Outside? She doesn’t have on “waiting” shoes, she has on “going to the meter shoes”.
What to do? What. To. Do???
Stephanie feels her upper lip beginning to glisten. Tiny drops of moisture forming on her skin. This could only mean one thing: SWEAT. The cowboy better hurry before she starts to melt. Lucky for Stephanie, the “Going to the Meter” shoes also double as appropriate front porch swing shoes, so she decides to take refuge on the swing and wait out this plumbing plight.
Back under the house, the cowboy-turned-plumber is commenting – loudly – on how tight 
the vent was to crawl into, and Stephanie may have to help him get back out. She tells him not to worry. She is certain if his middle is too round to fit, and he has to remain wedged there for several days in a great tightness, she will be certain to visit every day and feed him honey until Christopher Robin can help with the rescue effort.
The idea of being wedged in the vent was not at all humorous to the cowboy. NOT. AT. ALL. And he stated, in no uncertain terms, if he were to be “caught in a tight spot”, Stephanie had better do everything in her power, including greasing him like a pig, hooking him to a winch, (not to be confused with ‘wench’, which he might enjoy too much), and calling the National Guard and Bob’s Tow Truck to unwedge him.
Stephanie gets distracted by the word ‘wedge’ and daydreams about new shoes until the cowboy proclaims …
Stay tuned for the Season Finale of PipeBusters after this word from our sponsor.
The cowboy proclaims, ‘TURN THE WATER ON!’
Stephanie hurdles the shrubbery and dashes the 40 meters to the meter. Which, in reality, and this is a reality show, means she stepped in between the boxwoods and meandered back to the meter in a record 92 seconds.
She turns the meter on, and behold there is water, and it is good. (cue “Hallelujah Chorus”)
The cowboy begins the army crawl back to the vent. He tosses the tools out first. Contracting himself into the fetal position, he emerges from under the house. Face down, he pushes painfully through the small hole, centimeter by centimeter until he lets out a cry for fresh air. His shoulder is next, followed by the other, then the rest sliding out easily, but bringing uneasy repressed birth memories.
The job has been completed. After a mere 62 hours, and without the silliness of a professional plumber, the leak has been defeated. For now. At least the one under the house. The dripping shower is a different story
(cue “Shower the People You Love” by James Taylor).
Yes, the leaky shower faucet is a very different story. A lengthy story. A story appropriate for the next season of PipeBusters on the Reality Channel.
Thanks for joining us.
When we last left our victims, the cowboy-turned-plumber had been made aware of a possible skunk under the house just as a main waterline blew. He had given up the claustrophic chore of crawling beneath the concrete to conquer the catastrophe, postponing it until tomorrow. But the dreaded “TOMORROW” is now today. BUT soon there will be water and all will be well.
looking like a decaying extra from The Walking Dead. He hurts. All over. Neck pain. Back pain. Knee pain. “Bad day,” he comments, “aching all over. Swelling. Pain. Head hurts”
Yet another day without water. The laundry is piling up. The dishwasher is overloaded. The pitchers of water are running dangerous low. The toilet is being flushed with a 5-gallon bucket of pond water.
Removing the exterior vent cover nearest the central air unit, the cowboy-turned-amateur-plumber-because-heaven-forbid-we-pay-someone-to-do-a-job-today-that-he-can-do-himself-for-free-not-counting-supplies-over-a-period-of-several-days ‘army crawls’ into the damp darkness. Once he is securely wedged under the center of the house, he begins to bang and groan and saw. Stephanie chooses this critical juncture to share important information by yelling through the floor of the kitchen.
Stop the choir! The rejoicing was woefully premature, and the repair only served to stress the line further toward the front of the house, causing a full-on rupture of the pipe.
Emergency showers are taken. Legs are left unshaven (and this is NOT November! The cowboy is risking serious stubble burn if he has his sights set on snuggling.)
The synchronized stoppage of the strange hissing sound in sync with her son’s shower and the incoming text is an awfully big coincidence. (Of course, everyone knows, there are no big coincidences or small coincidences, only coincidences.) Still, she grabs her glowing purple cell, eager to discover who, WHO, has texted at this wee hour of 8:15 a.m.??? It’s the cowboy, who left for work just after discovering the hissing noise. Text: Wrench in garage. Leak under house. Turn water off at meter.
Now Stephanie runs her bath water while the washer fills, simultaneously her son fills 2 pitchers, brushes his teeth. Miraculously the laundry finishes spinning only moments after Stephanie’s legs are shaved…DONE! And in record time – only 38 minutes from text to wrench twist and the water is OFF!
she said 
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