Of Plumbers and Falling Water

There was absolutely nothing wrong with him—he was perfect in all respects: he did his work efficiently, he was pleasant, he was completely fluent in one language, and then (after some significant chatting) he went away. What more could anyone want from a plumber?

Well, he never showed up.

At least, that’s how I figured it, since he didn’t arrive on Friday, promised to come on Saturday but couldn’t, was off doing something else on Monday, and—in theory—spent two hours looking for parking in Old San Juan on Wednesday. Oh, and another day? Well, it was raining—and we all know how plumbers feel about water!

So we didn’t have a sink but a slop bucket, and guess who got to lug that all the way down the hall to the bathroom? Well, my right arm now could be mistaken for Schwarzenegger’s, and I’m walking with a pronounced list to the right, as well, but no worries! Hasn’t changed my politics!

So I called the company yesterday, and they assured me that they were panting, almost drooling to do business with me, but the parking in Old San Juan. Impossible, as we all know, since it’s never good and especially now, since it’s Christmas. And did I mention that a couple of days ago, there were three huge cruise ships in the harbor, and so the streets and especially the sidewalks were clogged with tourists, all of them very much on vacation time, which meant that they tended to move at half anyone’s normal pace for ten feet, and then stop, to call out hellos to other people they knew from the cruise. And since two of them were Carnival cruises, the tourists tended to be….

Has anybody every written about classicism and cruise lines? Because anybody in Old San Juan will tell you: you don’t have to run down to the harbor, a simple look outside on the sidewalk will tell you. If you see silver-haired, white, trim, sixty-year old guys wearing the latest in Polo and accompanied by a slender, beautiful, thirty year old blond woman, you’ll know that the Silver Spirit is in town. And their website? It’s so exclusive that they decline to allow me to download a picture of their cruise ship so that I can upload it to you. They did permit me, however, to copy the paragraph describing their best accommodation. Enjoy!

The name Owners Suite says it all. A stylish apartment. Prestigious and classic. For those whose standards are higher than most on a cruise.  Available as a one-bedroom configuration or as two-bedrooms (as illustrated) by adjoining with a Vista Suite.

Naturally, this doesn’t come cheap for “those whose standards….” So what’s the tab? Well, I really can’t tell you, because unlike any other website, they decline to dirty themselves with electronic pricing. Instead, they ask you to provide contact information, and assure you that a “representative” will call you in the next business day. That gives them time—presumably—to look you up on Forbes 500 richest list.

OK—that’s Silver Spirit. What about Carnival? It’s the exact opposite.

So anybody can see that my plumber and his company were completely justified in declining to come to San Juan unless…

“Yes,” I asked.

I provided parking.

OK—it was a day when my behavior was a bit more tropical than Nordic. Or was it that I was speaking Spanish? Because I hit the roof.

“Look,” I said, “we’ve been using you guys for twenty years, and never once have we had to provide parking. Nobody in San Juan provides parking! There’s no city in the world…”

So this morning, I was waiting for Juan, and fiddling around on my computer, since any serious writing was impossible, because what if Juan came as the muse was crooning in my ear? What would she do, if I told her that a mere plumber was of greater interest to me than she? Would she desert me for the guy at the next table? Would she ever come back?

So Juan called just as I was absorbing the interesting fact that…well, here it is: in 1928, Edgar made the first direct Pittsburgh to Paris telephone call to enquire about a designer dress.

Edgar being E. J. Kaufmann, the guy who commissioned Frank Lloyd Wright to build Fall Water. Right—always good to know about the first direct call from Pittsburgh to Paris—but Juan’s call, when it came, was a trifle more interesting. And guess what! He was here, but he couldn’t find…parking!

I sputtered, I fumed, I provided the list of three parking lots that could accommodate a pickup truck, I spoke so loudly that I woke up Taí, who came out of a profound sleep to enquire whether there was a bull fight going on. Then I went back to reading about Falling Water—and did you know that Mrs. Kaufmann could read in three languages: English, French and German? Wow—that’s class.

So I was making coffee—not that my stomach needed it, since it was rough seas down there, but just because it was the one thing I could do—when Juan arrived. Taí and I instantly got down to our knees and kissed his feet and hands, since the Stockholm Effect had taken hold, and we begged him to grace our kitchen. Oh, and we gave him coffee.

Well, this company has the interesting habit—though lucrative, for some—of coming (after repeated pleas and promises) fixing something, and then breaking something! Quite a business model—since the last time, Freddy the plumber broke two very beautiful and quite expensive faucet handles, and then pointed out that it was a very good thing, since who would want things so difficult to replace? So now we’re wonderfully happy with Home Depot’s cheapest, and Freddy was good enough to take away the remaining two pristine—and stupidly expensive—handles! Now that’s service!

So Juan had come, fixed the clog, and then broke the canasta of the sink—though it was probably our fault, since we had used Drano—horrors!—and that might have made the plastic brittle. So there he was, after having tested our love and devotion over the past week to see if we really wanted him.

Right—so then it was the work of ten minutes to fix the problem, after which I took Juan firmly be the hand and lead him to the morning room, where he could do no further damage. Juan then told me the entire history of his life, as well as the complete chronology of interesting events in his hometown, and I now can tell you that I know more about Juan than I do about Mr. and Mrs. Kaufmann. So I paid him a hundred buck—no charge for the history!—and went off to the café, where I discovered…

…toilet’s broken!