Monday, February 26, 2007

The plumber and the landlord

I almost collapsed from the cultural weight of the epic meeting of our Korean landlord and our Italian plumber today. They both have such shtick it was hard to keep from laughing. I wish I could have recorded their converstation as they discussed gas, hot water, and sewage lines. I'll reproduce one choice segment here:

Italian plumber: "You need to get a plumber in here to change the gas lines. I'd do it, but I know you Chinese guys all have your own Chinese plumbers."
Kevin: (long pause)
...
...
"I NOT CHINESE! I KOREAN!"
Italian plumber: "Sorry, don't mean any disrespect."
Kevin: "NOOOOO! IT'S OKAY!"

After the plumber left, Kevin launched into perhaps his funniest rant ever, not about the plumber, but about his sewage line. He pointed out an access cover to me and proceeded thusly:

Kevin: "This very important hole. It's for woman. She clog drain, you know? You have woman in bar, right? You need to use this hole, because they clog drain."
Me: (looking stupefied at Kevin)
Kevin: "You know, woman very messy, put many thing in toilet."
Me: (looking stupefied at Kevin)
Kevin: "You know, she put (making gesture at his groin) many thing in toilet."

It took me until this final gesture to realize he was saying he used that hole to fish maxi pads out of the plumbing. Ah, Kevin.

Anyway, the plumber has plunged us into handicapped-accessibility limbo. We need to figure out what to do about the two stairs that go from the front room to the back room to make them handi-friendly. We thought that wouldn't be a problem, but apparently our architect pulled a fast one on us. We'll talk to him tomorrow.

1 comment:

Kat(i)e said...

Kevin knows what he's talking about. We are nasty, nasty creatures.