4 — Wednesday, July 13, 1988 - North Shore News

THE PLUMBER came. We put off calling him for as tong —
as possible, but inevitabiy things got too bad.

There are three bathrooms in
the house we are renting. At first
this seemed wonderful for a family
of four who live in the bathroom
more than the rest of the house.

I can't count the number of
times I’ve found myself in the
bathroom, only to realize that
everybody else is in the bathroom
too:
I call this ‘swimming ia the bio-
. logical soup.” Primitive family

bonding stuff.

The bathroom being such an
important domestic gathering
place, it is absoluicly vital that
everything works.

AS it turns out, even with three
bathrooms, there is a tendency for
the family to end up in the same
place anyway. Habit, I guess.
More bonding.

So what happens? All three of
the toilets pack it ia, of course!

First, there was only a problem
with the downstairs toilet. Well,
we thought, Jet’s just feave it for
the moment. There are the two
upstairs bathrooms.

Of course we can charge any
maintenance costs over 50 bucks to
the owner, but he’s a nice guy and
we're nice guys and, gee, why
don’t we just manage with the two
bathrooms for a while?

Then the one upstairs, adjacent
to the master bedroom, started
trickling. It would just never quite
stop flushing a little bit. That can

be extremely irritating, as everyone
knows.

We solved that problem by
keeping the bathroom door closed
at nights so we could sleep.

This was a brilliant solution —
until the toilet in the main
bathroom got to the point where,
in order to flush it properly, you
had to hold the handle down dur-

«ac

with doctors: by the time you fi-

awakened by the howling pipes,
my wife called the plumber, hang
the expense.

Plumbers are worse than doctors
when it comes to appointments.
That is, you can’t make an ap-
pointment. If you want a plumber,
one of you has to take the entire
day off to hang around the house
waiting for him.

He finally did arrive.

As fate would have it, the pipes
weren’t howling. Another parallel

This caused him much displeasure. It caused me
much displeasure too. We were just starting to
seriously raise our voices, him reaching for a
monkey wrench and me for a ballpoint pen, when
I thought of using a Mastercard, and he thought of

accepting it.””

ing the entire operation, a time-
consuming business, a! best.

We still might not have called
the plumber except that the pipes
started howling —- making a sound
like a giant violin being tuned,
vaguely demonic. .

It would be easy for a person
with too much imagination to fan-
tasize that the house was going
through some sort of poltergeist
event sequence. As it happens, my
family is aflame with too much
imagination.

After a few nights of being

pe

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nally get to see him, the pain is
gone.

So there was nothing he could
do about that. Oh.

I took him on the tour of the
bathrooms anyway. He brooded
over the opened lids on the toilet
bowls in each room, shaking his
head, and eventually uttered the
dreaded words:

“Don’t make these any more.
Can’ get parts.”

Indeed? | kept my cool, After
all, it was the owner’s problem

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FFER

mainly. I was just curious, as a
student of human nature, to see
how far this would go. ;

Sure enough, the plumber’s
conclusion was that each of the
toilets would have to be replaced in
its entirety at $350 a pop, but he
could offer a deal on.the installa-
tion of three at once. It would be
$20 to $50 evtra if we wanted col-
colored units.

T assured him | would talk to the
owner about it.

That was fine. The plumber then
asked for my Visa card. We went
into the kitchen where he wrote a
bill for $68, then used my phone to
check that the Visa number was
valid.

As it turned out, 'd given him
an outdated card that I should
have torn up.

This caused him much
displeasure. {t caused me much
displeasure too. We were just star-
ting to seriously raise our voices,
hin reaching for a monkey wreoch
and me for a ballpoint pen, when [|
thought of using a Mastercard,
and he thought of accepting it.

I have to confess to still being in
a state of shock as | write this, a
day Jater.

Not only did the guy cost me a
wasted day, he didn't do a damn
thing, and dared to charge me $68.
The three toilets are still screwed.
And although the pipes didn’t
how! last night, they’re bound to
start up again.

I should have killed him while I
had the chance @

oa te en RES

& tennis ge etry:

Weights, aerobics, computerized bicycles jy,

oe YZ

Mien appear on
sex charges

TWO RICHMOND men appeared
July 13 in West Vancouver provin-
cial court to face a total of 13 sex-
ual-assault related charges stemm-
ing from incidents alleged to have
occurred in the early to late 1960s
involving three young males.

John Fitzgerald, 61, and Charles
Ulch, 64, were remanded to July
25 to fix a date for trial on the
charges.

Fitzgerald faces six counts of
indecent assault, one count of
gross indecency and twe counts of
buggery in connection with inci-
dents alleged to have occurred
from May 1963 to May 1969.

Ulch is charged with one count
of gross indecency, one count of
indecent assault and one count of
buggery in connection with inci-
dents alleged to have occurred
from May 1963 to September 1969.

The two are also jointly charged
with one count of gross indecency
in connection with incidents alleg-
ed to have occurred between Oc-
tober 1965 and April 1966.

All charges stem from incidents
alleged to have involved three
males on Hollyburn Mountain in
West Vancouver and at various
locations in Kelowna, Vancouver
and Richmond.

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