The plumber's son

7/16/2007 12:55:00 pm BenefitScroungingScum 0 Comments

Today thankfully the plumber arrived to sort out the leak in the toilet. I say leak, but outside it's been causing more of a minor flood that the local kids have happily been playing in and making the grumpy man opposite complain, not to me but to my neighbour. He told her that I should 'just do this....' and she happily informed him that that was all well and good but I wasn't actually capable of 'just doing anything' and that plumbers aren't the easiest to get hold of these days. Fortuitously with all the kids playing in the water it happened to be leaking from the cistern and out the overflow, and so was clean water not sewage of any kind, not that these kids belong to anyone in my road or appear to have parents to be concerned that their pre school age children might be playing in sewage water.

The plumber arrived and I made him a cup of tea before he turned the water off. I pootled around whilst he sorted the problem out and talked to me about his son and the problems he was having with his now ex girlfriend and their baby. It's the usual story I've heard so many times of being refused access despite paying out to support her and the child.

The toilet was fixed within half an hour, something to do with a diaphragm...though I'd thought that was a form of contraception. I asked him how much he wanted for the job and he said £9. I tried to give him £10 but he insisted on giving me back £2 and apologised for burdening me with all the stuff about his son and grandchild.

Increasingly I feel like I am living in some sort of parallel world.

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