The Dumb Plumber

I listen to my Blogfather Harvey. He blogs about the Showcase, he asks us to link over to it, he asks us to read it, and he asks us to think about entering.  Well, I did the first two anyway. They were easy to do.  I haven’t found anything personally worthy of entering, but that’s a whole other story.
 
While there, I was reading all the entries and one struck me as very funny and entertaining.  I had to log onto this guy’s blog because I just liked what I saw. Then come to find out, Harvey had commented in Showcase at his entry and he even blogged on it.  (BTW, Harv, if you noticed I’m all over your sitemeter today it’s because I’ve been going through your archives trying to find your posting.  I’m not stalking you.  Really.  I don’t think.)  I was in DC evidently and missed the whole daggum thing.  Dammit.  So I found him by accident, because of Harvey, but Harvey had already found him and blogged on him.  Make sense?
 
He’s The Dumb Plumber.  His entry into the Showcase was very funny.  Take a look, it’s an open letter to all Doctor’s, Lawyers, and Stockbrokers.   
 
He also has a reason he calls himself The Dumb Plumber.  

Dumb Plumber was a pregnant idea sired by an Edward Jones Investment manager who, in the summer of 2000, while pitching $85 World Com and $48 Williams Oil and Gas,  was lecturing his brokers on presenting investment ideas that, ”even a dumb plumber could understand”.   Even a dumb plumber knows better than to buy at the top of the market!

 
If you read his blog, you will see he is anything, but dumb.  I often wonder why people think that tradesmen are dumb. I personally never want to mess around with my water for fear of flooding my house and I don’t mess with electricity because…. I… Don’t… Want… To… Die.   The Great Omnipotent One is very handy, my grandfather being a highly regarded Electrician. Even TGOO has a rule of thumb, “Don’t mess with the plumbing.  Call a professional for that”. 
 
Anyway, this reminds me of a story and keep in mind, The Dumb Plumber’s blog is clean, I haven’t seen any cursing, so this is not speaking of him or inferring this applies to him! 
 
I know a young man, mid 20s, whose father is a very well respected plumber in the area. He owns his own plumbing company and they are busy.  One day I was speaking to this young man when something happened and he said, “And to use the favorite word of Plumbers, “F***!”’.  For some reason it struck me as funny. I didn’t know that plumbers owned that word. I thought it was Navy pilots and aerospace engineers.  So flash forward to about 6 months ago when construction was finally starting on my home.  I had every tradesman you can imagine here and I was having a grand ol’ time.  I had baked for them, I was making sure everyone had enough to drink and I was making sure everyone was comfortable in my home since they had to be there… they may as well not hate it.  The plumber, Kerry, was an awesome man, in every sense of the word.  Very sweet, gentle, but also made me look like a hobbit in comparison to him, which is really not that difficult.  I took him to the side yard to turn off the water to the house so he could do his thing. The landscaping guys were right there when we did it.  I go back to the backporch to check on the electricians when evidently the landscaping guys decide to turn the water back on without checking with Kerry the plumber.  I hear this bellow, “Who the F--- turned the F---ing water on?” and he goes off.  The electricians stop what they’re doing and look at me. I start to laugh because what is the probability that I would have a plumber at my house and hear the Plumber’s Favorite Word?  (Well, actually, considering it is ME we're talking about and I have some funky ass karma that is indescribable... it was pretty high.)   So I walk back to where Kerry is, fully intending to chide the landscaping guys, when Kerry realizes I have heard him.  Oh he was three shades of red and apologizing all over for cursing in front of me. I kept telling him it did not offend me, I’ve heard the word and God only knows I’ve used it… many times, but he would hear nothing of it. He was horrified. What he really was, was a gentleman.  What a great guy.