plumbing is a messy business

I’m not really much of a plumber. I guess you could say I know enough to be dangerous. I’ve soldered a few copper pipes together, installed a disposal in the kitchen sink, and repaired or replaced a few leaky faucets. So when the guest bedroom toilet backed up and sewage came up out of the shower drain I thought, “I guess I’d better snake it.”

Standing in Home Depot, surveying the different brands of drain augers, a sales employee approached me and said “you need any help?” I described the problem and he said “You are looking at the wrong tool. You need to rent a bigger auger.”

I decided not to listen and took my chances with the fifteen dollar solution, but when that didn’t seem to get my anywhere I headed back to home depot armed with the knowledge that I needed something bigger.

My experience with the clerk behind the rental desk was an entirely different exchange. He took one look at me and my auger and said plainly “You need a plumber.” Taken back I asked him what he was talking about and with annoying alliteration he said “You need a plumber.”

Chagrined, I asked him why Home Depot would rent the equipment if there wasn’t an outside chance that the average layperson couldn’t accomplish what the seasoned plumber could do? His response was pretty much “YOU need a plumber.”

It’s funny but I knew, at that point that he was probably right. I listened to his advice with good cheer when he spoke of my choices between going through the toilet or an outside vent and when I left I muttered “thanks for the vote of confidence.” At home I took one look at the toilet and knew that it was an all day if not all week job and felt totally deflated. I paused for a moment and wondered how I would even begin finding the outside vent, fought back a sea of emotions ranging from helplessness to despair and humiliation. Then tucked my tail between my legs and went to J. and said “we need a plumber.”

The next morning I overheard J. and the plumber talking. I could barely look at him. I heard him say in a clear voice “I am going to need to go through the outside vent. That will be an extra two hundred dollars.” My heart sank. J. left for the store and I sat on the couch numbly watching a show on ancient Egypt. What did Egyptians know about plumbing? They just peed in the sand. Afterwards I went outside to survey the plumber’s work. He was climbing down a ladder with the exact same model auger I had rented the previous morning. “I could have done this” I thought. I gave up too easily.

When I was fourteen I was challenged to an arm wrestling contest by a larger boy. We sat arm in arm struggling for what felt like an eternity. I remember to this day the conscious decision I made to give up. Not because it was momentous, but because of what the other boy said right after “Man I am glad that is over, I couldn’t have gone another second.” I remember it now because in my memory it sounds a lot like “You need a plumber.”

I was sending some Rumi passages to a friend the other night when I came upon one that feels a lot like how I feel right now.

No intellect denies that you are,
But no one give in completely to that.
This is not a place where you are not,
yet not a place where you are seen.

I know neither the boy nor the Home Depot clerk defeated me. Instead of focusing on them and my feelings, I remind myself that none of this really matters. No one will remember this day, except for possibly me. True, I don’t like feeling like I can’t do something, and I like it a lot less when it is me that tells myself “I can’t do this.”

It helps even more to remember that this isn’t a zen thing, nor is it an exercise in humility or grace, well maybe it is, but for me it is more a recognition of my own imperfection. I want to think that my problems come from without, or that if they come from within, spiritual guidance will solve these problems. But really it is just me being human, and trying later to be kind to myself that sometimes I make a call that isn’t right or isn’t perfect, and that it doesn’t matter, and I can go on with my day, and what is more important, that I can use the toilet again.