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Wednesday 15th December 2004 - 11:21am

Kitchen Titanic

I woke up this morning to a strange hissing sound. I searched the flat to find where the sound was coming from – and eventually I found it was coming from my hot water system. Actually, it was coming from all the water that was leaking OUT of my hot water system! At first I was relieved, because it meant I didn’t have meningococcal – I was just flushed, hot and continually peeing because I had a flat full of hot water. But then I realised I was about forty minutes away from getting poached, and had to do something.

I discovered that the little rubber stopper on top of the system was not on properly, and water was getting out. So I pushed the little rubber thing back on properly, which stopped it – until, just like that Darren Hayes song, it went POP!ular and the water started actually gushing out.

So I grabbed my trusty yellow pages to find someone who could come out and fix my rusty yellow hot water system.

Plumber #1 was very helpful for someone woken up at 4am – he told me where all the taps should be and which tap would stop the water flow. When it didn’t work, he said that I should immediately find someone to come out and look at it. I was about to remind him that out of the two of us, he was the plumber, until he told me that he’s actually half way down the Gold Coast; and that he could come out to me, but my flat would probably already be half Titanicked before he got there.

Plumbers #2 and #3 didn’t answer their phones – clearly 24 hour service meant a particular twenty four hours spread out over a week.

Plumber #4 followed the very basic rules of salesmanship – lead with your best feature. “I’m expensive.” No really, that was his best feature. The callout fee was so high I had to check he hadn’t just quoted me his call-girl fee by mistake, and when I told him I couldn’t actually get my hands on that kind of money without either going to an ATM or assembling Ocean’s twelve (both which required leaving the water soaked flat), he abused me and then hung up on me, leaving me with an ear full of hot air to go with my flat full of hot water.

Plumber #5 handled my situation very well; especially considering by this stage there was so much water I saw Kate Winslet run past and jump into a lifeboat; and I was borderline hysterical – like a supermodel who accidentally wandered into a Sizzler. He told me to go to the tap that Plumber #1 had pointed out (luckily I had a snorkel), and to turn it on and off and on and off again.

The good news is it worked. The bad news is it worked – and I could have done it twenty five minutes earlier and saved myself a lot of water damage, not to mention a lot of stress and girly hand flapping. Now all I have to do is decide whether I want to buy a mop… or a pair of water skis!

Echo Echo Echo - 7:55 pm , 2007-03-20

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Kitchen Titanic - 11:21am , Wednesday 15th December 2004

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