Over the last couple of months, I have been dealing with a leaky bathroom faucet. It’s not the simple, typical drip from the spiggot. Rather, it leaks from the top of the faucet assembly onto the vanity. Seeing as how there was such a list of things that we needed the landlord to fix when we moved in, this was put on the backburner. But the landlord has taken care of the bigger issues and without anything else to worry about, we became increasingly annoyed with the pools of water all over the vanity. The landlord’s personal plumber arrived this morning to fix it, but all he did was serve me a fixin’ of attitude.
He was 100%, even 1000%(!!!) sure that this particular Delta washerless faucet could not possibly leak the way I described it. In turn, I was 100% sure that I had seen it leak with my own eyes. We stood there in my tiny bathroom staring at the running faucet and I was just waiting for the leak to do its thing. And it didn’t. I could tell the plumber was loving this. He kept repeating the part about being an expert and knowing that a Delta washerless faucet cannot leak that way and as he was raising his voice and throwing his hands up, I started to raise my voice. What can you do when you’re arguing with someone who is certain that he’s right, even when you’re certain that you’re right?
He pretty much accused me of calling him a liar when I merely held my ground and told him that, no, the standing water was not caused by our own sloppiness. So, we let the water run and he enjoyed every drop. “I’m abusing it now!” he shouted as he frantically turned the hot and cold water on and off, faster and slower. “See! Abusing! Abusing! And abusing!” He walked away in disgust and said, “Hey, my man, I’ll wait 10 minutes and we’ll see if it does anything.” I thought that was fair, but a mere 60 seconds later, he grabbed his tools, headed for the door, and asked, “Okay, can I go now?”
I told him that I’d just contact my landlord directly if the leak were to occur again. Even though he suggested this very thing five minutes earlier, hearing it from me enraged him even more. “Ray is my good friend!” he shouted, “I wouldn’t lie to you, my man.” So, this plumber went from calling me “a gentleman” over the phone the other day to storming out of my apartment and leaving me scratching my head. All I could do was tip my cap to whatever mischievous spirit keeps making me look like a fool when I try to point out broken things to the plumber from hell.
