My Verticals Went. I'm Quite Convinced It's All Robbo's Fault.

Madame's Nightshirt
Mrs. Peperium

The Peperium's basement

Yesterday, my verticals went. For those of you lucky enough not to know what verticals mean, it means the plumbing that runs verticular (is that a word?) in the cold plaster -yes cold plaster- walls of our home. When we bought our house, our real estate agent told us we had 20 years on those pipes. Well turns out he was wrong. That's ok. He told us we had at least 15 years on the furnace - we got two. The windows were good for a lifetime -they made it 7 years. Ah well, no one can't be right all of the time especially when they're trying to sell you a house, can they?

Anyhoo, this is all Robbo's fault. Yes it is. It my payback for pushing him, as he himself once described, into The Tiber. If you know anything about Robbo the Llama Butcher, then you know besides being a recent convert to the Roman Catholic Church, the man has more plumbing problems than the average Roman Cathoilc convert. Being educated in an almost Ivy League school, and attending an almost decent law school, Robbo's up on all things psychological too. He doesn't totally buy into all things psychological because if he did, he never would have left the Episcopal Church. But he must buy into transferrance because he transferred his plumbing problems onto me very nicely. Thanks a lot Robbo.

So, our plumber has yet to add up all the numbers and tell me how much $$$$$ this verticular thingummy is going to cost Mr. P. Then I've got to call the kilt-wearing cold plaster Scottish guy Mr. P cannot stand to see how much it will cost to put a new ceiling back into our breakfast room (the plumbers have to take it out) and then call the paratrooper turned craftsman who did my kitchen to find out how much it will cost for him to reline the alcove for the double oven in the kitchen with cottageboard (that's history too because I'm not letting the plumbers, as nice and competent as they are, put one finger on the wormy chestnut paneling in the breakfast room). *Sigh* It's moments like these when I wish I could help Mr. P with the financial burdens of our home. But I can't. *Sigh* The trials of a stay-at-home Mom. All I can do for Mr. P is try and make his home a happy one so that when things burst like dreams or pipes he can laugh about it and say it really doesn't matter. Of course that wisdom hits him after a stiff bourbon or two does first.

So Mr. P, this one's for you.

Oh, and Robbo, no this is not the future short story with you in it that I was babbling on about. This, most unfortunately, is real life.

Comments

[Robbo the Llama Butcher]

Mwa ha haaaaa!!! Stand by for the transferrance of the mice under the floorboards and the children who refuse to pick up their dirty clothes, as well!

"Almost decent law school" forsooth!

[Robbo the Llama Butcher]

Oh, and I can send you the rabbits out of my garden, too!

[Basil Seal]

"It's a vicious rodent"!

[Joules]

I'm truly sorry to hear about it. I could export Plumber Bob, my plumber who tells me he's a fifth generation plumber: his great-great, etc. grandfather was Thomas Crapper. (I told him it might be more than 5 generations between them.) He said he had to come up with a little story to distinguish him from his peers since he wasn't good at flattering customers and this was the best one.

[Mrs. Peperium]

Robbo, if your rabbbits are anything like the one in Monty Python, by all means send them along. Heck, if they're anything like Jimmy Carter's rabbit send them.

Back in our townhouse days, we had chipmunks in the walls and ceilings. These were the chipmunks I kept well-fed with a birdfeeder. I'll never forget the night, one fall, when Mr. P and I were sitting in the living room enjoying adult beverages and reading and the chipmunks decided to move their enormous stash of sunflower seeds across the living room ceiling...Every so often, they would drop one or two and we could hear them pinging away as they hit the rafters with the chipmunks scampering around after them.

[Old Dominion Tory]

I'll see your plumbing problems and raise you a chronically leaky water heater and a major house fire. Who's in?

[Jordana]

I'm busy trying to pretend I've forgotten the year of termite ridden beams, upstairs gutting and all the other things we spent the last year focusing on, but mostly I just know exactly how miserable all these house problems can be and how nice it would be at times to get a job and help out with the extra expenses of it all.