Living Retired –‘Snakebitten’
Living Retired — ‘Snakebitten’
By Gary Chalk.
Friday morning, I was in my Jeep driving home from the store when Jan called.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
“Gary, where are you?”
“I’m coming home from the store. I picked up a snake.”
“OH MY GOSH GARY! There was a snake loose in the store and you actually picked it up?”
“Not really, Jan. When I said I picked up a snake I mean I bought a snake.”
Jan was stunned, “Lord love a duck!”
“No Dear, I didn’t buy a duck. I said I bought a snake. What would we do with a friggin duck?”
“Gary, so you’re telling me we need a friggin snake?”
“Yes Dear, I need a snake for our kitchen. I bought one that is 25-feet long.”
CLICK. Jan hung up.
Jan has a thing about snakes. She doesn’t like them. Now I’m not sure she even likes me.
Continuing my drive home I recalled a snake joke that always makes me laugh: a snake walked into a bar. The bartender looks up and says, “How did you do that?”
At home I grabbed the snake, walked into the kitchen, and turned the sink taps on.
“Jan, the drain is clogged so I bought what is called a plumbers snake to auger through all the guck.”
“Gary, you know I don’t like when you play tricks on me. I’m really quite upset with you.” With that she stormed from the room. I did what any mature man about to twist a 25-foot long snake down a sink would do: I threw a hissy fit!
Jan knew what to do: she stayed away.
I went at it ‘drilling’ the snake drown through both the drains in the kitchen sinks. No luck no guck!
Next, I contorted my body underneath the countertop and tried to twist apart the black PVC ‘trap’ which is plumber talk for ‘beware of stinky dirty water that will suddenly gush when you loosen the plastic bolt thingamajig!’ Wiping up the mess with paper towels made things worse.
This is when Jan arrived. “Gary, you know that we now have black guck in both the sinks. And it smells like that communal outhouse when we went camping all those years back!”
That is when it happened…
WHACK! Getting up I hit my head underneath the granite countertop.
To make matters worse Jan added, “Gary, it doesn’t appear that you know what you are doing? Is that a fair comment?” Right away she realized I was angry, so she added, “Gary, it’s a zoo in here. Get it, the snake?”
I wasn’t laughing.
“Jan, I am drained. Let’s eat out this evening.”
I changed into clean clothes. Jan started the dishwasher to clean the load while we were out. Not a good decision…
When we returned home, I discovered the dishwasher had backed up and filled the kitchen sinks, and in turn water overflowed onto the kitchen floor! I literally ‘stumbled’ on this when I slipped on the wet floor and went down. “*&^$&*&#@$ JAN!”
Later that evening in bed Jan closed her book, “Gary, next time don’t buy a snake. Just call a plumber. It is like that time we came home to find a leak in the basement and the carpet was soaking wet! And the time you left the sprinkler on overnight and filled a window well that soaked through the wallboard. Or the time we came home and….
“Hey Jan just let things go. It is water under the bridge.”
Living Retired is written by humour columnist Gary Chalk.
