Dirty Job

“Hmmm, it smells good. What is it?” asks David, my general contractor.
“It’s a plant-based cleaner. Pretty strong stuff,” I respond as the short stocky man sprays our garage floor with Simple Green and scrubs it with a broom. Only a few minutes ago I was fuming with anger, holding back the urge to yell at him.

Rewind.

Sunday morning. We’ve been living in a house under major construction for the past six months and I’m enjoying a rare moment of calm: a day without any banging, nailing, drilling, scraping, sawing, sanding, or soldering. In fact, I’m going to peek at the basement, see how the work is progressing. Are the anchor bolts installed? Are the walls closed? Are the doors framed? I cross the garage and step onto the elevated platform that leads to the basement. My foot slips and I feel both legs skidding underneath me. It takes both reflexes from martial arts training and a healthy dose of luck to save me from falling flat on the wet floor. Wet? Why is the floor wet? And what’s up with the foul smell? I step carefully on the wet tile, searching for the source of the leak. It seems to come from the dark corner behind the furnaces. Holy smokes, what IS this smell? I turn on my phone’s flashlight to take a better look. Everything is wet back there, and there are chunks of mud, and even… wait a minute. Is that toilet paper?
Speed dial.
“Hi, David. It’s Cedric.”
“Oh. Hi, Cedric. How are you?”
“Not so good right now. I’m in the garage and there’s water behind the furnaces. Toilet drain water.”
“That’s not good.”
“No, it’s not.”
“I’m coming right away.”
“Ok, see you soon.”

Forty-five minutes later, David is standing next to me, inspecting the water drain behind the garage. “Can you please flush a toilet?” he asks. I call Mai upstairs and ask her to oblige. I want to stay here and see what’s going on. After a few seconds, we hear the sound of the water rushing through the pipes. So far so good. Then a geyser shoots out of the drain behind the furnaces.
“There’s poo-poo too. That’s not good.”
I remain silent. Hearing the word poo-poo coming out of a grown-up’s mouth would be funny in other circumstances, but not right now.
David puts on a pair of gloves and carefully pulls two little plastic pipes out of the drain.
“Can you please flush the toilet again?,” he asks with a smile. His voice, usually rambunctious, has turned soft, almost shy.
I relay the instructions to Mai and take a few steps back, just in case.
David stays next to the drain but his body leans backward ever so slightly. His smile has faded.
Water rushes down the pipes. Suspense. We both hold our breath. No geyser this time. We exhale in unison.
“See? Problem fixed,” David beams. Then he picks up his phone.

“Hi, Robert. It’s David.”
“Hi, David. How’s it going?” Robert is the subcontractor who installed the furnaces. A very laid-back dude. The kind of guy that’s fun company at a bar, and unfortunately the kind of contractor who fails inspection four times before eventually getting the job done right. Well, almost right.
“Pretty good, pretty good,” says David. “Listen, I’m with Cedric right now, at his house. Do you remember the drain where you connected the condensation pipes from the furnaces?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“There’s water coming out of the drain. And poo-poo.”
“That’s not good.” I wonder if all contractors get trained to use the same four words when the proverbial shit hits the fan: that’s not good. Or maybe it’s just a skill they learn by experience.
“The pipes are blocking the drain and causing a backflow.”
“Oh shit.” Precisely.
“I pulled the pipes out. We’re going to need to redo the connection. I’ll ask my guys to do it.”
“Ok, thank you.”
“Don’t put the pipes back in.”
“You got it.”
David hangs up and turns to me with his usual smile.
“Do you have some detergent? I’m going to clean this up.”

I fetch some Simple Green while he brings a broom from his truck, grabs a water hose and starts to work.

It’s Sunday, he’s wearing a fancy shirt, clean pants (free of construction dust, grease, plaster and paint) and his hair looks nicer than usual. I wonder what he was doing when I called.

“Hmmm, it smells good. What is it?”

Poof! Just like that, my anger is gone.

~Cedric, July 2021