plumbing without chuck colson

Trouble comes in threes.

So say the superstitious. But even the superstitious get it right now and then. Yesterday was one of those "thens."

The three-troubles that rolled my way yesterday involved plumbing. The house's plumbing. Not mine. I just want to make that clear or you might be disappointed at the fork in the road we are about to take.

I knew about one of the troubles. A faucet on the upper terrace has been leaking for some time. Because it was easy enough to slip a pail under its infrequent drips, I have simply put off dealing with what I thought was a simple gasket replacement.

The other two problems were unexpected, far more serious, and showed up together on Sunday.

When I moved a five-gallon jug of water under the kitchen sink, I found a small pool of water. The jugs here often crack, so, I inspected it for the offending fissure, thinking that was the source of the pool. I was wrong.

The water was coming from the sink's plumbing. The cap on the trap was cracked (if I may steal a Seussian internal rhyme). A quick trip to the hardware store put a new cap on the system. But it did not fix the leak.

Then Omar told me that his bathroom sink was not draining. The sink has (or had) one of those jack-in-the-box stoppers. Push it to close. Push it again and it pops right up. Or, it should. But no manner of tapping would induce it to pop up again.

All three of these problems were well within my expertise to repair. And, had it just been one, I would have done it myself.

I long ago learned that Mexico is a labor treasure trove. Repairmen are willing to trade their expertise for a reasonable number of pesos -- and that money is far less valuable to me than my time of tackling the tasks alone. (Never mind that, even though I am paying, I still spend my time watching the work. Witnessing experts at work is one of my favorite pastimes.)

I do not have a regular plumber. But I knew my neighbor's handyman (and skilled musician) Donny would know one. He did.

That afternoon, Hector and his freshly-minted first-day-on-the-job assistant Carlos showed up to rescue me from what seemed like the foreplay to Noah's flood.

Omar watching Carlos on his first day on the job. Hector is under the counter.

Three and a half hours and two trips to the hardware store later, I had a new faucet upstairs, some new plastic pipes under the kitchen sink, and a completely new closure system in Omar's bathroom. All of that set me back $600 (Mx) in labor and $167 (Mx) in parts. I rounded off my payment to $800 (Mx). About $41 (US).

In these parts, it is not unusual that if a restaurant runs out of a food item on the menu to substitute something else without asking the customer. It happened to me last week. I ordered a hamburger with French fries. The hamburger arrived, but with potato chips. When I asked, I was told there were no French fries. There are a lot of theories why the customer is seldom asked about the substitution.

Apparently, the switch is not just for restaurants any more. Plumbers do it, as well.

When Hector had finished his last project (Omar's sink), he showed me what he described as a "practical Mexican solution." He could not find a pop-up stopper similar to the one that failed. At least, not locally. His solution was to plumb the sink with an open drain. As a stopper, he had purchased an old-fashion rubber plug. Just like my grandmother's tub.

Had he offered me that solution before he finished, I probably would have said "no." My goal was to restore the sink to its original lines. But, after the deed had been done, I agreed it was a practical solution.

Omar was not as sanguine. But he is a modern aesthete. If I find an appropriate stopper in Manzanillo, I may switch it out myself.

All in all, it was an afternoon well-spent. I learned some new plumbing techniques and I now have the telephone number of a plumber. Best of all, the water now flows where it should.

And that strikes me as a good day.