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A LEAK OF THEIR OWN

OK, raise your hand if you have a toilet, sink, or shower on your roof.

That’s what I thought. So what would make ANYONE think that I would have said bathroom fixtures on the top of MY roof?

It all started when I sat down for lunch the other day. I started in on my sandwich, I heard this, “Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip.” I took the wisest course of action, which was to loudly eat potato chips in the hope that I would drown out the dripping sound and thus the problem. Unfortunately, every time I paused I heard the sounds again. After a few minutes, I decided to acknowledge the problem. I turned around and saw water coming off of my ceiling and making an undesired puddle on the den floor. With my mood quickly going south, I called my home warranty company. I pay good money for the peace of mind that knowing that when something in my house breaks, quality professionals will be on the spot to fix it. I think I am paying too much.

Apparently, something in the tone of my voice made my home warranty people believe that when I called them recently. He is exactly what I said: “I have a leak in my downstairs ceiling. The room is under the upstairs bathroom, so I am pretty sure the leak is coming from the shower, toilet, or sink.”

The home warranty person told me that someone will be at my house in four hours. This, of course, is a big lie and one of the home warranty profession’s longest running jokes. After the required four hour waiting period, I called the company. The woman there told me that they had, indeed, received the request, and that a roofer was on his way. “Excuse me?” I said. “Why are you sending a roofer? Is he driving the plumber?”

“We got a request to fix a leaky roof,” she replied.

“Grrrrrr,” I responded.

I canceled the roofing order and called back to my home warranty company. Casey answered the phone. Casey and I had the following conversation:

ME: Get someone out here ASAP to fix my ceiling and stop the leak. And send a plumber, not a roofer.

CASEY: OK, but if they get out there after hours you will be
charged overtime fees.

ME: No, I won’t, Casey.

CASEY: Sir, you have to pay for this unless it’s an emergency.

ME: Then call it an emergency. My family can’t come home until the leak is
fixed.

CASEY: Why is that?

ME: Because my wife is pregnant and I don’t want her walking around on a slippery floor. Also, my child is two, and I don’t want her around a bucket of water.

CASEY: If there’s a bucket down, it shouldn’t be an emergency.

ME: You don’t have kids, do you Casey?

CASEY: No, why?

ME: Because if you did, you would know that a two-year-old and a bucket of water are a bad mix. Regardless, if your people hadn’t screwed up, they would already be here fixing my leak. Casey, you are now allowed to say one of two things: “Let me let you speak to my manager” or “I’ll get someone out right away and we’ll pay for it.” Choose now.

CASEY: Uhhhh...

ME: Go ahead.

CASEY: I’ll get someone out right away?

ME: And?

CASEY: And we’ll pay for it?

ME: Good boy.

Sure enough, in about 30 minutes, a plumber was out there, and he solved the problem in about four minutes. It turns out that a connector pipe had cracked underneath my wife’s sink, which I am pretty sure makes it her fault. I told her that she broke it, but when she asked to explain exactly how that was, I told her it was very complicated plumbing stuff, things that only real men understood.

The good news, I suppose, is that the leak is now stopped, and the risk of having my upstairs come crashing into my downstairs seems to be remote at best. And, as promised, the home warranty people only charged me the standard service call fee. There are similar pipes elsewhere in my house, and I am sure it is probably just a matter of time until they begin to crack. I think I may have to make a preemptive strike. And buy louder chips.