ArcaMax

The first chilly day of the year, I heard scary banging in the basement. It was the boiler.

I walked upstairs and woke my husband.

"Honey, there's banging in the basement," I said.

"You've got a guy," he responded, half-asleep.

My husband, you see, is a master plumber. When someone desperately needs a plumber or an electrician or another skilled tradesperson, they want "a guy" who could also be female.

Craig padded downstairs and quickly saw that it was the gas valve. He tapped it on and off a few times with the wrench and quiet returned.

Plumbers make a good living, and when they come by a do a quick fix, customers may want to know why they charge so much. Some gouge, but Craig feels he charged a fair price for specialized work requiring a house call.

When a customer has a broken pipe, that's an emergency. "Then you come and fix it right away and they say, 'God, why is it so expensive?'"

Consider a clogged kitchen sink. "People don't think you should charge them very much because they didn't put anything down there that should have clogged the sink," Craig said. "They say things like, 'I put just one little thing down there.'"

"That's like telling the surgeon they shouldn't have to pay for their bypass because they ate carefully and ran marathons."

I started off as a customer. I recall the time Craig came over for a small basement leak. He twisted the pipe back in place in less than a minute.

I foolishly said, "If I knew what to do, I could have fixed it."

To which he replied, "If I knew what to do, I could write your columns."

We were dinner guests at a house on Martha's Vineyard. As we sat around with drinks, everyone went through what they did. I'm a writer. I teach this or that. I work for a think tank.

When it came around to Craig, he said, "I do plumbing and heating." To which one of the women commented, "You're the guy we're always looking for."

After Craig replaced my shower valve, an all-day job, we sat around my coffee table settling the bill. Interest rose when we got into a serious discussion of politics and history. And I had to note Craig's fine, muscled physique. Enough said.

We corresponded during COVID and eventually had a meal that led to more meals. Then marriage.

When one of my friends has a plumbing concern -- or just needs someone with the tools and know-how to attach a mirror to bathroom tile -- they tell me about it. I know what they want. They want me to send my guy over, which I generally don't do. In special cases, he helps them but jokingly asks whether I'm "pimping him out" to my friends.

Craig mocked my box of "Barbie" tools -- even a drill that you plug in and, in my opinion, could kill someone. It was a "cheapo plug-in," he said. "It was cute, though."

What do plumbers dream of at night? I obviously can't generalize, but in Craig's case, he's sometimes looking for tools. These are anxiety events, as in "Where's that specialized wrench?"

Plumbing can be brutal work. Craig has done all-day jobs on frigid days in unheated new construction. He's waded through filthy tenement basements. He's carried 140-pound water heaters on his back up three flights of stairs. He's done middle-of-the-night emergency calls. He's had numerous injuries, some serious. He still has a scar on his leg from a long-ago acid burn.

I've got a guy who is both a good guy and a plumber. I feel lucky.

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Follow Froma Harrop on Twitter @FromaHarrop. She can be reached at fharrop@gmail.com. To find out more about Froma Harrop and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

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