Learn From my Woes

I’ve been having lots of fun over the last week. I won’t go into the details, because I don’t want to experience the psychic trauma all over again, but I can tell you some conclusions I have garnered from my ordeal.

1. While the Supreme Court reviews the constitutionality of applying the death penalty for crimes not involving killing, they should also consider applying it to anyone who embeds a drain pipe in a concrete floor.

2. Anyone who installs a roof vent for a plumbing system without putting a screen on it to keep roaches out should be forced to spend a week in a small cardboard box with said roaches. After being smeared liberally with peanut butter and honey.

3. We need to pass laws sanctioning the flogging of building contractors on sight, based on general principles.

4. The outhouse is a greatly underrated invention which deserves a second look. In fact, if I ever have a home on a big enough piece of land, I think I’ll install an outhouse purely as a precaution.

5. Having been through so many hurricanes I have lost count, and having been deprived of electricity, running water, phone service, and the Internet, I am pretty sure running water is the hardest thing to do without. When you can’t make full use of your house’s plumbing, it becomes difficult to keep your body clean. You can’t do dishes. You can’t do laundry. And the situation in your home generally deteriorates as the effects of dry living cascade into other areas.

I think number 3 was already obvious.

If you ever have to fool with your house’s plumbing, please listen to my advice. Do not run pipes under anything you can’t remove and replace in ten minutes. I read about one sap who installed a multi-thousand-dollar concrete driveway over a drain pipe that subsequently went bad; imagine the horror. Do not listen to a plumber or contractor who says it’s okay to build over pipe because “it will never have to be dug up.” As Murphy could tell you if he were here, anything that can have a problem requiring it to be dug up, will. It’s better to have a two-mile run of pipe under your lawn than a ten-inch run under a concrete slab.

Avoid cast iron pipe at all costs, even if PVC makes noise, because sooner or later, cast iron will flake off and give you permanent clogs that can only be fixed by replacing your pipes. Use the biggest-diameter drain pipes your plumber is willing to install. And whenever you have work done, take pictures while it’s in progress. It will scare the hell out of your plumber, motivating him to do the job right, and the photos will be useful later when things go wrong. Especially if you have to sue.

Plumbers still seem to know what they’re doing, but I can’t figure out what happened to all the competent building contractors. Did someone kidnap them and bury them in the Everglades? Who built all the nice old houses and buildings we see every day? These days, contractors will look you in the face and say, “It is impossible to do this job right, regardless of what you pay, because all the people who know how to do it right are dead.” That’s not an exaggeration; they actually say that.

I suspect that the single best reason for stopping illegal immigration is to keep our houses from falling down. We used to have a system of apprenticeships and exams. Now we have ignorant peasants who stand in front of Home Depot, waiting to find out what arcane areas of construction they’ll have to master on a given morning. “Enrique, what do you know about masonry?” “Todo, senor.” “Enrique, what do you know about wiring a house?” “Todo, todo.” “Enrique, what do you know about cooling gas molecules with a current-controlled CO2 laser?” “No proleng. I feex.” This is why the paint on your walls went on without primer and your shower was plumbed with half-inch electrical conduit.

That’s not completely true. American workers do horrible work, too. Inventors keep changing building materials and practices, making things simpler and easier, so less skill is required. But the American construction worker is too fast for them. He manages to lose skills so quickly, it’s impossible to for inventors to keep up. In the past, the main benefit of doing your own construction was the lower price. The quality was likely to suffer. These days, contractors are so inept, you are likely to do much better work even if you start with no skills whatsoever.

I hope we never have to say that about doctors.

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Somebody had a tougher weekend than I did.