Last night I became a man. 26 years of nurturing, education, love, and encouragement has successfully led me to this moment, and it was beautiful! Last night I attempted to fix a blocked pipe on my own. I didn’t fix it of course; such miracles cannot possibly fall out of the womb without cosmic repercussions. But I did however take a thorough look, and even went so far as to taking apart a pipe. In all honesty, I think I did more damage than repair, but what is important here is that I tried! I went on a plumbological voyage, and boy did I discover!
What you all will be interested to know is that there actually exists a world past that black hole, the plug hole. It is not a majestic world, and there is little grace and finesse to it. It is a tough world, a dark one, full of aqua related perils. It is dirty and squalid, requiring a firm mind and stomach. It takes a strong man, willing and brave to discover this world, and fully prepared he should be. Doffing all unnecessary clothing (such things are an encumbrance in this world) I squatted in my pants and plunged behind the ceramic front cover (technical term I might add) to assess the piping situation.
When ones hands is not accustomed to the rigour of manual labour, it is easy to cut and fray such tender skin, but such is the sacrifice a man must make on such a voyage, and what I lacked in actual physical practice in labour and conquest I certainly made up for with a knowledge in the Classics. Homer and Virgil themselves would be humbled at the sight.
I pushed up my glasses and squinted into the darkness that was more a reflection on my sudden atavism.
The situation was grim and my hands alone could not conquer this savage environment. I had to fashion tools, thus increasing my manliness. From the clothes rack I forced out one of the poles with a strength I never knew I possessed; but it is at times like this that you learn new things about yourself. For this was as much a journey of self-discovery as simply fixing a blocked pipe.
With this long stick thingy I rammed it down the hole and immediately felt the resistance I was expecting. But it was hard, stubborn and reluctant to easily yield to my efforts. And so I met my foe, and like with many foes I could not see its face. Its elusiveness pressed a more fervent image on my mind. But I would not give in, I was in too deep, and backing out now would only bring shame upon me and my family. I forced down again, harder.
Like the seppuku-ed bowels of a disgraced samurai in a violent 70s Japanese action film, the splash was loud.
And like a child that kicked his friend’s balls who was trying to steal his skipping rope, only to discover that he had had testicle surgery a few days before, I felt I had gone too far.
Squatting again with more emergency I discovered that I had in fact forced apart the pipe by shoving against it with my stick, with all the accumulated water in the basin splashing onto the bathroom floor. What I thought was my enemy was merely the apparatus in this new world, and like a new-world coloniser what I believed was the block in my path to a restored world order was actually the new environment. And I was violating it. Should I have just let it be? At nights I ask myself that question a lot.
But through hasty violations, one can also learn. And With this newly freed pipe part new realms of piping knowledge revealed itself to me. I affixed it again to its right place, yet everything was not quite in its right place. I was a changed man. I had been to that place that we only hear of in legendary plumbing bawdy talk. I had marched past that place seen only in the ass-crack of a bending plumber, plumb plunging, and experienced myself the watery world of this misunderstood land.
And when the actual plumber comes around to fix what I had undeniably broke, I can be treated like a deserved equal as we swap stories of our piping voyages. I too can share with him a bond deeper than any pipe may wish to plunge.
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