Repairmen — we need as many as we can get!

I just read (in the Cape Gazette) a list of recent apprenticeship training graduates from Sussex Technical High School. Congratulations to all; we really need you! Skilled trades are a sensible career choice, and you will make a good living. Thanks, also, to all of the businesses who were sponsors to give these new graduates good jobs.

You have saved me from inconvenience and worry, or worse, many times, but this is supposed to be a humorous article, so I have a few incidents that would make for a good sitcom TV show. One night in December several years ago, I was down for the night at our Milton house. I wasn't living here full time then, and suddenly, the heater started spouting water. It was the heartbeat of the house, an ancient relic of my mother's regime which she worshipped. I had no change of clothes and was soaked. It also sounded like Niagara Falls underneath the house, indicating that there was a second water leak, and of course it was a Sunday night.

A skinny-as-an-eel repairman came right over and shimmied down into the crawlspace. At least he turned the water off! "We'll finish tomorrow," he said. "And by the way, you have a pile of valuable copper pipes sitting down there!" He was so nice I hoped he'd be the one to come back, but they sent another guy. He seemed to be all business and was rather abrupt. I had ferried my snooty white Flame Point Himalayan cat named Blaze down from Wilmington with me to keep me company. Unexpectedly, Blaze jumped down into the open crawlspace!

Naively, I called down into the Stygian depths through the hole in the floor of what was called “the gentleman's dressing room" to ask the new repairman, "Can you catch my cat?" "Hell no, I don't mess with cats," he called back. I got his point, so I eased myself into the scary aperture with trepidation. I had never been down there before, but I had to rescue Blaze.

It was a muddy brown field. Vertical foundations that held up the house stood sporadically like Roman columns. Blaze, always elusive, slipped behind these like a white ghost. I crawled through cobwebs and puddles of water. A skeleton of a long-dead possum entombed like something from an archeological dig lay in its watery grave. Finally, I caught Blaze and carried him to safety as he hissed and clawed indignantly.

I plopped down on the sofa, thankful to be above ground once again, even covered in cobwebs and with muddy knees. The next thing I knew, the plumber scurried by me with the valuable copper pipes under his arm. "Those are my copper pipes!" I yelled. "Give them back right now!" He said, "They're mine! I deserve them. I fought for you down at town hall and I installed a nipple for you!" I was for once silenced. He took the pipes to his truck and crouched there filing them like a busy beaver on my time!

The heater was my mother's obsession and became mine. I felt the warmth of its pipes with real love every time I passed by it. One company she dealt with only for propane came in once, and serviced her oil heater and billed her. They had misread the address and come into the wrong house. She recruited me to deal with them and I told them they were guilty of breaking and entering and they let her off the hook and rescinded the bill. She told me I was mean to them and had scared them! No compliments ever from her. One of the last things she wrote in her wobbly handwriting that I found on a notepad right after she passed away was, "They shouldn't have messed with my heater!"

Then there are “the blacktop  guys.” My mother would fall prey to any sort of home upgrade just to have someone to boss around like she did with her former students. One of them came right through the back door into my house on a summer day without even knocking. Wearing a Confederate hat and toothless, he rushed into the den, bellowing, "Where's that older lady?" Her 32 years younger daughter (me) answered, "She's been gone 15 years." "Well, your driveway needs a blacktop coating," he informed me. "I just paid $5,000 for a new sidewalk and I'm not in the market for a topcoat," I answered.

Fortunately, Jeff pulled into the driveway just then, and the blacktop guy left. But some years later he came back, and wandered right into the house again, seeking more work due to some leftover material. Now I lock my back door summer and winter! Other experiences I've had with local workmen have been mostly good, especially the older man who came in the middle of the night all the way from Felton to repair my heater. So, you new graduates carry on with your necessary service to us non-mechanical types. Just be sure to knock first! I'll be waiting to meet you.