wedges – she said

pipe busters leak 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.

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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? that's what she said 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 winnie the pooh stuck 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.

RAYS OF LIGHT FROM HEAVEN 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.

The following story is true and is intended for mature audiences only. This blog contains: unspoken language, mild peril, sexual innuendos, processed food, and swashbuckling action – not necessarily in that order. Do not attempt to try any of this at home without the oversight of a professional. This blog was manufactured in a facility that uses tree nuts and soy. Oh, and multiple mice were harmed during the making of this production. That’s all. Sit back and enjoy.

My name is Stephanie. I’m wearing wedges. The blog you are about to read is overdramatized. The names were changed to protect the innocent, but since there were no innocents, I changed all the names back.

The story started in March when I decided to fully embrace REAL food. No more processed junk, no more bleached white flour, no more high-fructose corn syrup, no more artificial sweeteners, NO MORE FAST FOOD, and no wire hangers. EVER!

Some time later, several friends organized an organic food delivery, which would have to be picked up once a month, 60 miles from where we are. We were set us up as a ‘satellite group’ with one contact person. If there are issues, they will coordinate with her. The rest of us simply have to make the 2-hour round trip when our turn rolls around.

June was my turn. I was to meet the Covenant truck on Monday afternoon at the designated truck stop.

Since this was my maiden voyage, I left early to avoid any complications. I arrived 45 minutes before the driver was scheduled to be there, drove around the truck stop, but seeing no sign that he and his Covenant semi had also arrived early, I parked and waited.

And waited.

The driver was now a half hour late. At 4:00 I texted our contact person to be CERTAIN I was in the right location (a moderate-sized truck stop), and to verify I am looking for a semi with ‘Covenant’ on the side. She does not return my text. I drove through the truck stop again, just to be sure I was not missing something.

At 45-minutes past time, I CALLED our contact person. She did not answer my call. This is NOT normal. I drove around the truck stop another time, again just to be sure. My stomach was starting to growl, but the only food off this exit is a McDonald’s and, as I said earlier, fast food is NOT on my Real Food Agenda.

truck stop hooker At an hour late, I called the girl who had picked up last month, and she verified the semi does, indeed, say Covenant on the side, and added the fact there will likely be 2 people in the truck. A few minutes later she called back with phone numbers. So I called the organic grocery company, who gave me the number to the trucking warehouse, who gave me the truck driver’s number, who chased the cat, who killed the rat, who ate the cheese… who didn’t answer his phone.

Another quarter-of-an-hour later, the driver called back to say he’d had a breakdown (I assume he meant mechanical and not emotional). He had left a message with our contact person earlier in the day, but she hadn’t responded. He apologized, but said he wouldn’t arrive for another 2 hours.

I was supposed to have dinner with my daughter. I phoned her to say “that ain’t happenin,” as I won’t be back to the house before at least 8:30.

Now all the girls in our grocery group are texting and calling and wanting to know what time they can expect their healthy goodies, and I’m scrambling to return their texts, all the while I’m stuck at this truck stop exit for another two hours waiting on my organic avocados and steel-cut oats and sweet potato crackers, which I should happily be snacking on at this point instead of listening to my tummy rumble.

Since I have time to kill, I look around for something – ANYTHING – to do besides languish in the van another 120 minutes, sweating and grumbling. It’s 104 degrees in the shade – and there IS no shade – the only things that ARE here are the truck stop, an interstate, a McDonald’s and a large tacky touristy gift shop. I don’t need diesel, I’m not eating fast food, so “Eenie, meenie, miney… tacky gift shop!”

I spent an hour taking pictures of gaudy gadgets and sending them to my daughter:”Things I am buying for your house.” I was especially fond of the 4-ft-tall-Mystic-Fairy-statue. This amused her somewhat and kept me entertained for a bit.

After strolling past the ceramics and do-dads and knick-knacks and bric-a-brak and CRAP that nobody should ever spend money on, I perused the candy aisle. Mmmmm…. gummy worms and orange marshmallows. Obviously, I’m starving now, as it’s 6 p.m. and I haven’t eaten since my 11:30 bowl of field greens.

So, while I waited on my organic fruits and veggies and gluten-free bread to arrive… I compromised all my principles and drove through McDonald’s for some pink slime and a cup of sodium phosphate. Shut up. It was delicious.

At least I was less grouchy now, and since it was nearly truck-arrival-time, I returned to the truck stop just in time to see a Covenant Transport truck – with two men in the cab – pull into the line of semis in the back. I drove in front of them and waved (as they would be expecting me). They didn’t acknowledge me with anything other than quizzical looks. I had a hesitant feeling, as they didn’t look like truck drivers so much as vagrants in a police line-up, so I pulled back around to the front to wait some more.

After a couple of minutes, my brain started to reason with me. “Steph, you’ve been here HOURS longer than you were supposed to. You have missed dinner with Kacey. You are tired and hot and bored and there is a Covenant Truck parked back there, likely with your boxes in it! Go back there and ask!”

Bravely I got out of my car and walked over to the cab of the Covenant Transport truck. There was now only one man in there. He was wearing a gold necklace and a sweaty black tank top (I’m assuming to coordinate with his sweaty black hair) and holding a brown glass bottle. He lowered the window and looked down at me. I called up something like, “I’m here for my Azure pick up?” But because there are dozens of trucks lined up here, and it was very loud, and because I got so hot sitting in the van that I took off the camisole under my shirt that WAS keeping the girls tucked in, I’m pretty sure what he heard was, “I’m here to ensure a pick up”.

Naturally, he invited me up for a beer.

And that’s the story of how I was mistaken for a truck stop hooker.

The end.