By Sheri McGregor

            A decade ago when we were considering buying our fifty-plus year old house, the realtor was ever vigilant at disclosure. “It’s an older home,” she said, her voice a careful balance between warning and enthusiasm.  Eyebrows raised, she added, “You may have some plumbing problems.”

            “No sweat.” My husband swiped his handy hand through the air.  “I can fix that.”

            Good thing he felt that way. Too bad he wasn’t home when it needed fixing.

The morning before our housewarming party, my chest swelled with pride as I prepared the meal, happy to show off our new-old place. Pride turned to frustration when I went to the kitchen sink. Fate had risen from the drain in the form of a smelly brown slurry that muddied my outlook for the party and warned me of problems to come.

            Working extra hours that morning to afford us the party, my husband couldn’t be reached. With guests on the way, I called a plumber on Sunday--something no one in their right mind would ever do.  

He arrived an hour later to put a Band-Aid on the symptoms, but he alerted us to bigger problems--old metal pipes corroded with rust. “Kind of like a person’s arteries after years of a cholesterol-laden diet,” he said, hiking up his dirty jeans and handing me the bill. “Those old pipes need replacing.” 

As I coughed up a check for the ungodly, holy-day amount, my husband’s word bounced back at me.  No sweat. I can fix that.  He’d better get started.

The following weekend he donned his Navy blue coveralls purchased for the occasion, and slithered under the house. By noon, he'd sawed off several sections of corroded pipe and replaced them with modern materials. He slithered out to waiting sandwiches, but his lips curled in distaste.  “I think I’ll wash my hands first.”  He swiped his fingers down his coveralls, leaving sludge-trails down its already-soiled front.

I set the plate on the picnic table, my stomach twisting at the foul odor assaulting the spring air. Was it my husband smelling like that?

During the eleven years since that day, I've seen my husband disappear, head and shoulders first, into that dark crawl space at the side of the house at least twenty times. He's "fixed" the plumbing so many times it makes my head spin and tempts me to divorce. The toilets run, but don't flush. The sinks run, but don't drain. The septic lines leech, and the tank works fine—unless, of course, you're having a party.

I used to keep my husband's plumber-phobia to myself. But one day a friend mentioned her running toilets, and her husband's insistence on fixing them. "He fixes them every weekend," she said. "The toilets work on Sunday evening."

"Why don't you call a plumber?" I asked.

Between the two of us, we concluded that men don't call plumbers. Calling in a plumber is a threat to their masculinity.

            We've started a weekly support group for the wives of plumberphobics. Our programs address varying topics: "Your Mother-in-Law is Coming – How do you explain the taped off sink?"  Or, "Get that Plumber in the House, Without alerting your Spouse."

copyright by Sheri McGregor