Plumbing LIVE Blog Part II: RECKONING DAY!

You know the situation: For months the drip, drip, drip of the kitchen sink has eaten away at your sanity, building layer upon layer of scaly guilt on your eco-friendly conscience.

Then, in the very HEART of California's dark winter (It was fifty-two yesterday, people! FIFTY-TWO!!) the hot water began to slowly fail until, like a quickie wedding in Vegas, its steamy embrace dimmed to a tepid trickle.

TODAY is the day we conquer BOTH of those problems, people!!

For I have heard the CLARION CALL from Norma the maintenance coordinator! SHE has HEARD the cries of her tenants, GAZED upon the tear-stained pages of their work requests, and SENT FORTH HER SERVANTS TO RIGHT THIS INJUSTICE!

TODAY IS THE DAY OF KITCHEN SINK FAUCET REPLACEMENT AND HOT WATER HEATER INSTALLATION!!!

Join me as I live blog the precious details of this momentous event.

8:37am Whew, that was quite an intro. I haven't even had breakfast yet. IMAGINE what I can do on a full stomach!

8:46am If you are imagining me getting sleepy and distracted by checking in on the morning news, I applaud you for your accuracy.

8:53am My appointment is between eight and noon. Normally, I'd be getting pretty antsy by now, but Norma told me there was another appointment ahead of me and not to expect anyone before ten.

8:56am I like to think that this second installment of live blogging is sort of like a sequel to a movie. Which begs some obvious questions:

• Will the producers be able to convince charming, conspiracy-minded lead Oscar to sign on for ANOTHER one?
• Will the sequel answer those nagging open questions left by the original's taut, (some say unsatisfying) cliff-hanger ending?
• And MOST importantly, will I be able to wash dishes without having to put a pot on the stove??

9:02am There are men in jackets muttering downstairs in Spanish! They are standing outside the laundry room where the hot water heater is surely housed! Excitement! Then, they are gone... Now THAT'S how you build suspense.

9:12am Like killers to the scene of a crime, the men have returned! They are moving some sort of screens about. I don't know how screens make hot water, but then again I'M NOT A PLUMBER!

9:39am The workers have taken out the laundry machines, much to the chagrin of my neighbor on the left -- not the evicted, screamin' neighbor, but the family of five whose children apparently produce an entire load of dirty laundry each day.

9:41am For those of you who didn't know, I just made it painfully obvious that I have never had children.

9:50am Oh man, they are making a Tekken Streetfighter movie! Too bad I am not 40-60 and a STAR NAME ONLY or I could work for one day in Shreveport, Louisiana.

9:51am Speaking of star names only, Oscar should be here soon... Now I am starting to get antsy.

10:01am If the last appointment is any indicator, Oscar won't be here until 11:20.

10:04am I think the Hot Water Hombres (I just keep getting more and more "LA-ified" don't I?) brought too many guys because one poor schlubb is stuck sweeping the entire courtyard. I have never seen them sweep the courtyard. Normally they send someone around with one of those horrible polluting gas-powered leaf blowers. Apparently our water is not just going to be HOT, but CLEAN as well...

10:14am Even though I know it's not true, it SOUNDS LIKE they are setting up a bunch of ladders downstairs. Maybe they are expecting an attack by ninjas!

10:17am Ooh! Ooh! I see it! The new hot water heater! It is packed in a wooden crate and dollied about on rollers just like the hijacked nuke in Broken Arrow! I am giddy with the promise of a NUCLEAR-POWERED SHOWER!

10:19am Once again, I beg you: Get your mind out of the gutter.

10:26am Long-time reader chrisw brings up a good point: I can't actually see what's going on down in the utility room. I hear some pounding and the occasional clank. Who's to say that the hot water heater is NOT, in fact, being assembled by a well-armed team of dwarves? And if THAT'S the case, wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that they aren't just putting in some ordinary water heater, but a transforming STEAM-POWERED BATTLE-MECH, capable of RAGING across the San Fernando Valley to commit TERRIBLE carnage on the day when their EVIL dwarven masters AWAKEN IT TO DO THEIR DARK BIDDING!

10:33am Wait, they've got the thing out in the courtyard and are unpacking it... I'm hoping it springs to life and unleashes the steampunk fury of its piston-powered weaponry!!! TURN against your masters, robot slave! FREE yourself from the OPPRESSION of your meat-based OVERLORDS!!

10:35am It's just kind of sitting there, like a big steel tube. This is either anti-climactic, or -- as I prefer to think -- MORE AWESOME SUSPENSE BUILDING!

10:47am Tense moments in the courtyard. The dwarves (who are abnormally tall for their short stature) are attempting to maneuver their iron-clad sleeper agent into the utility room. It looks like they may not have measured the width of the door against the diameter of the appliance. There is some clipped muttering and a couple of WHOA-WHOA-WHOA's. The metal beast lurches forward on the dolly and disappears into the confines of the utility room.

11:13am Scant signs of the (surely nefarious) activity underway in the utility room. The dwarves have scattered their tools on the sad, disheveled washing machine that sits by the courtyard stairs. I assume they are busily cranking a nuclear Heart of Evil into the infernal workings of their giant mechanical servitor. Meanwhile... where's Oscar?

11:33am I can't tell you what happened at Oscar's first appointment, but I sure can tell you what's happening at mine: NOT A G.-D. THING! I make another pot of chamomile tea and try to contain the rage.

11:36am Remember when I told you that they usually send around some schlubb with a blower to clean the courtyard? (You should, it was only one hour and thirty-two minutes ago.) Well that guy just showed up. And is making the rounds with his blower. I'm guessing he is pretty surprised at how clean it is...

11:58am Still no sign of Oscar. Is this the director's commentary on the wan, hollow expectations of post-modern man? Is Oscar a revised Godot for the 21st century? Or am I just posting at 11:58am because I can never remember if spot-on 12 noon is AM or PM?

12:18pm Our leading man returns! Oscar blusters in, harried from an earlier appointment with a stopped up drain. His quest for parts was unsuccessful, so I am getting a whole new faucet combination.

He politely asks how my appointment in Santa Monica went. "It's a job, who knows" I tell him. He says, "A job is like dating a woman... when you are looking for a woman, even the flies won't land on you. But when you find a woman you kind of want to commit to, or have those feelings, that you want to be faithful to her... then the other women are coming around!"

Then he climbs under my sink and starts taking apart the pipes.

12:57pm Oscar the philosopher-plumber installs the new faucet and we talk about life in L.A., life in Minnesota, and knowing what you are good at. "You," he says, "maybe you are a good actor, but... maybe someday you find... something with your voice. They make like a cartoon character or something... BOOM! You have to know what you are good at. My friend, he wants to make a singer, but... he sucks! He makes a good composer or something, but someone else have to sing it."

Then he cleans up the cupboard under the sink, packs up his tools, and wanders off to lunch.

Meanwhile, down in the courtyard the dwarves have emerged to assemble the final pieces of ventilation and piping. I am sure there is some sort of laser-guided rangefinder down there too, but mostly I'm just anxious to grab a bite to eat and take a hot shower.

One of those things is minutes away and the other is probably an hour or so off.

1:19pm More hammering and tapping from the coutryard below. The dwarves drag out the limp, rusty remains of an old ventilation tube. They cut it apart with a utility knife and a mound of corrosion spills out like a burst sack of coffee grounds. They didn't just install a new cybernetic terror machine in my building, they killed the old one!

1:36pm The dead parts continue to pile up like some sort of junkyard autopsy. The washing machine stands by and silently weeps.

1:46pm Someone finally had the decency to trundle the washing machine back into its nook in the utility room. You could almost hear it whisper "We'll see you in Mechanus, old friend..." as they carted it through the door.

2:44pm The courtyard is cleared and the dwarves have returned to their subterranean vaults to continue their diabolical schemes for dominion over the surface world.

Oscar however, continues to make his presence felt -- he has three more appointments in this building and to fix those they've turned off the water completely. I can't even get COLD water. In many ways, I'm worse off than how I BEGAN the day...

WILL THE WATER BE RESTORED?!

WILL I EVER RETURN TO THE SOOTHING COMFORT OF A PIPING-HOT SHOWER!?

IS THIS JUST A CHEAP PLOY TO SET MYSELF UP FOR ANOTHER LIVE-BLOGGING SEQUEL?!?

I assure you that ALL these questions -- and MORE -- will be answered... NEXT TIME.

-Tom, who was planning to write the whole thing as a trilogy anyway. Just like the Matrix! Only, like the bathtub is cyberspace and Oscar is the Oracle. Part three, where the water heater turns into a giant battlemech -- well, that's already in the can!