Mabel and Eunice and the Freakin Frickin Pump
By Victor Epp
Salt of the earth, these women are. There's a lot of things you could call them. You could call them hard working, and you'd be right. You could call them good mothers and you'd still be right, although when you factor in the fact that between the two of them they were bringing up five teenagers and everyone a real spark plug, maybe it's as much a matter of survival as good mothering. Well, it don't matter anyway. I reckon they're entitled to combat pay, what with music lessons, soccer and dancing, boyfriends and girlfriends and all that. And on top of everything else there's the house in the country to keep. Yep, you could call them women a lot of things all right.
But genteel ain't one of them. They're not the kind to crook their little pinkies having tea, or make pleasant small talk at your lah dee dah social events. Oh, not that they don't have the gift of they gab. They do that all right, but they'd never have made good diplomatic ambassadors to anyone unless it was to somebody like Yasser Arafat or Idi Amin. No, they're just a little too direct for all them fluffy niceties. They like nothing better than to get right down to the heart of whatever it is that's on their minds. Of course I've yet to come across a time when they're on the same page in any of what they call "discussions". What usually starts out to be a difference of opinion on any given topic always turns very quickly into a difference of opinion on who is right. The actual subject under discussion becomes secondary; in fact, down right irrelevant. Oh yeah, and that's another thing you can call those two; assertive. That's a genteel way of saying bull headed plain old stubborn and feisty.
Now don't go getting the wrong idea about these two. There's never any malice in these "discussions". They’re not even about proving the other one wrong as much as they are about proving themselves right. Even winning the argument isn't as important as the argument itself, although it’s a bonus. Presentation counts. Articulation and language counts. It’s like a chess game of words and ideas. As animated and picturesque as the language might get, these contests could easily qualify for an Olympic demonstration sport of endurance and articulation.
All of this brings me to the thing I found myself chuckling about this afternoon. It's all about the well pump. See, in the country you got your own well, your own well pump, and your own set of problems that you just don't get in the city. That's just the way it is. Things are no different at Mabel and Eunice's place. Water pressure. That's what it was all about. There was no freakin' water pressure. Well, at least they could agree on that. The tirade of clear, concise and articulate dialogue that accompanied each morning shower was proof that both of them were right and, believe it or not, on the same page for once. I can't really put on paper what all was said. It wouldn't be right. I heard somewhere once that reading too many cuss words could cause you to develop cataracts and I sure don't want anybody to go blind over anything I ever wrote.
Well, to get to the point; something had to be done about the freakin' pump, but what? Mabel wasn't the sort to fool and fiddle with figuring out and fixing things. If some piece of bleep was acting up, get rid of it and get a new one! That was her way. In fact, it was a perfect excuse to get rid of that bleeping noise every time the pump switched on. They'd drill a deep well, put in a submersible pump and it would be just like bleepin' city water.
"What? Are you out of your cotton pickin' skull woman?" ventured Eunice demurely over a beer one Friday night after the spark plugs had all gone to bed. "We've been bustin' our sorry butts all year so we can go on a decent holiday and you want to blow it all on a hole in the ground just so you don't have to listen to the freakin' pump? Yeah, that sounds like a plan all right." She smiled that smile of hers, inviting Mabel to take her best shot.
Mabel took a long sip on her drink. You'd have to be quick to notice the twinkle in her eye as she took up the challenge and mulled over the opening salvo. "Eunice," she began eloquently, "Eunice, you always have such a way of looking at the dark side of life. You'd as freakin' soon nickel and dime us in to the poorhouse with your band aid patch up remedies for something that was a piece of bleep in the first place rather than do the job right once and for all."
Well, I could sit here and go on and on with every last detail blow by blow, but there wouldn't be any point to it. See I wasn't there so what I put down here is just sort of a made up conversation. Oh it happened all right, no doubt about it and it was about the pump. They told me about it later, but I'm coming to that. I've been in on these discussions before so I know how they go. Chances are that what I wrote was more or less word for word exactly what they said.
This time Eunice held the upper hand. That vacation was pretty important for the two of them, no question about it. They could drill a deep well and put in a freakin' submersible pump and the whole nine yards and sit home all year and listen to nothin' 'cause the freakin' pump would be a hundred and fifty feet under ground and you couldn't hear nothin' that way. Or they could buy a new pump, a good one, not one of them ‘bleep, bleep, bleep’ hundred dollar jobbies. Three, maybe four hundred dollars would get you one that had some real juice. They could install it themselves and still go on a holiday she reckoned.
Well, that was just too much argument for Mabel. She did her level best to turn the tide but finally had to throw in the towel. She wouldn't have been such a lame duck about it either except for that bleepin' holiday they both wanted so bad. She made a mental note just in case something went wrong. One thing you've got to say about both Mabel and Eunice is that once they reach a consensus, by whatever means, they go after what they decided on with the same gusto they go after each other. So they went pump shopping. They gave a wide berth to that Canadian Tire bleep. Schwartz's didn't have what they wanted. Neither did Certified Septic Service. Finally they lucked out at a pump service not too far from their place. They had to have one of them Monarch pumps - a Red something or other. The trenching and backhoe guy told them that's what they should get. So they did.
Buying the best there is that’s one thing. Removing the old piece of bleep and installing the new one is quite another. Can't you just imagine the running dialogue during the whole long process? I mean, here they are proud as peacocks of their new Red Thunder and Lightning freakin' pump in their hot little hands. All that stands between them and a decent shower is that old bleepity bleep piece of bleep. They can hardly contain themselves. You'd think they'd have learned by now, but no, not Mabel - or Eunice for that matter. It's Friday night and they got the whole weekend ahead of them. Now if they could only get the dishes out of the way and enough water for reserve after the spark plugs all have their baths, they could get started.
"Holy Bleep!" says Eunice, standing at the kitchen counter, instructions in one hand and a beer in the other. "This pump even has a brass screw to set your cut off pressure."
"Let me see that," demands Mabel. It's not that she doesn't believe Eunice, but she's got to see everything just because she wants to. Besides, she's itchy to get at it.
"You can just wait 'til I'm finished Mabel, unless you want to stand right here and read along with me."
"Don't start," chuckles Mabel, firmly planted in the big easy chair and playing pool on the video game. "I just want to see for a minute."
Eunice wanders nonchalantly into the living room with her beer and instruction book in hand and waits until Mabel is about to make a shot. "Here!" she yells, making Mabel miss.
Eunice totally ignores the long string of picturesque oratory and kneels beside her friend. "See," she smiles pointing to the page, "that's quite a set up."
Well, they do have a sense of humor right along with a competitive nature and you more or less have to take your amusement where you can get it when you’re as busy as those two.
They hem and haw like that for a couple of hours about tools and clamps and hose sizes until finally Mabel runs out of patience. "You kids got about ten minutes until there's no more water. What's not done has to wait until tomorrow."
Naturally everybody’s been procrastinating and now the whole house is filled with groans and moans and a lot of noisy dishes and pots being filled. That's one thing the spark plugs have learned the hard way. When Mabel says ten minutes, she means ten minutes and that's when she turned off the water.
It was a long night to say the least, what with fittings that wouldn't come off, and hoses that seemed to be welded to the fittings. Stress was quickly mounting.
"Howard," Mabel yells at the end of another long oratory aimed at the whole corroded bleepin' mess, "Howard, go get Ralph!"
"Huh?" It was nearly ten o'clock and Howard had been in bed for at least an hour, though who could sleep with all that ruckus going on? Besides, what did she want with his dad at this hour anyway?
"In the garage," Mabel explains. "The big pipe wrench." That was Mabel's own little inside joke. She'd named the pipe wrench Ralph after her ex because she said they were both pretty good at screwing around. Not that there was any truth to it, but it tickled her fancy. As I said, you had to get your amusement where you could.
"Oh," says Howard and shuffles off to bring back the tool that was big enough to scare any pump into submission.
Mabel's jaw is set. "Now," she says, "well see if this freakin' frickin' piece of bleep is going to get the best of me!"
Eunice notices the determined look in Mabel's eye as the big wrench comes into her hand. "For God's sakes Mabel, be careful. We only got so many spare parts!" There's a touch of panic in her voice.
"I need a drink!" says Mabel. "Alice," she hollers upstairs to number two spark plug. Make me a drink. You know what."
Eunice interrupts. "I'LL make you a drink," she says. "Alice, I'll make the drink. You go out to the beer fridge and get me a cold beer."
Alice goes out to the beer fridge while Eunice pours three fingers of whiskey over ice and adds some coke. "There now," she smiles sweetly at Mabel. "Let's just take a little breather and then we should get it done."
The stress seems to diminish in direct proportion to the amount of whiskey left in the glass. The coke just serves as confirmation of this as a little burp escapes Mabel's mouth. "Alright then dearie," she smiles. "You hold the pump right there and I'll start getting the hoses in place."
About this time, we get a phone call. It's Alice. She's dying to talk to someone with a civil tongue in his or her head. "Where are you?" I ask. I figured she was in the city.
"In the closet," she says quietly.
"What in thunder are you doing on the phone in the closet?"
"Mom said I'd be better off in some place other than where her and Eunice are so I'm hiding in here," she explains with a small giggle.
"Oh." So we chat for a while and then I turn the phone over to her grandma and they do more of the same.
Well, as I said, it was a long night. When it was over, both women were dog-tired, but they felt good about their accomplishment as well they should. They put tools away, swept and vacuumed and dusted, and even hauled that freakin' frickin' piece of bleep out to the garage where nobody, especially them, would ever see it again. Satisfied, they tumbled in to bed, dreaming of a traveling vacation out east.
Wellsir, that was the next time we heard from them, about four days into their holiday. They had already arrived at their destination and were settling in for a good time. We figured they just phoned to let us know they got there safe and sound. Well they did that all right. But there was another thing they wanted to talk about. You guessed it - the pump. The freakin', frickin' new-fangled bleeping' pump. Could I go and have a look to see what the trouble was?
See, they'd never have known about it until they got back except that Lilly, the oldest spark plug had opted to stay home instead of going with them. That was understandable enough. Lilly was fifteen - going on thirty and she'd been holed up with the rest of the annoying crew the whole summer holiday. This was her chance to get some peace and quiet and be grown up all by herself without being pestered to distraction. The phone and the computer were hers to command at will. Her girlfriend could stay over a night or two and who knows, she might even get lucky if her boyfriend got back from his vacation before the rat pack was due home. Then - no water! Suddenly Lilly is just a little kid again with everything crashing down around her.
"Mom!" she whines on the phone. "Mom, there's no water! It's just awful. The cats have no water, the toilet's gross and what should I do?"
This is just what Eunice needs. They just got away on their precious holiday and her whiney brat is on the phone trying to prick a hole in their bubble. Well too bad! She doesn't give a rat's thing-a-me-bob if the house is on fire. They're not coming home until it's time to come home. They might even stay longer if they bleepin' well feel like it. That's what's going through Eunice's mind. Then she feels a moment of panic.
"Lilly, is the pump - oh for God's sake stop you whimpering and pay attention. Is the pump still running? Go look. If it is, shut it off. I'll hold."
While she waits she hollers over her shoulder to Mabel who is sitting on the deck, relaxing. "She says she's got no water."
"Oh bleep," says Mabel.
Lilly comes back on the line. "I turned it off. It was really hot and smoking."
Normally Eunice would have tore into her daughter for not paying attention to things but since they're visiting friends who aren't quite used to her dialogue in that kind of a mood, she thinks better of it. Instead, she tells her to shut up and quit whining. They'll think of something and call her back. That seems to work.
That's when I got the phone call. It was Mabel. Would I go out and look at the pump. There was probably nothing I could do, she opined. The well was probably dry and they'd have to bite the bullet and drill a deep well after all, when they got back. Like they should have done in the first place, she added. She said it loud enough so Eunice could hear who was right the first time. I could call them later and let them know what was what.
By the time I got there, Lilly had regained her composure and at least I didn't have to comfort some whimpering, snotty-nosed teenager. I went right to the pump room. Sure enough there was no water anywhere except in the catchall tray they used in case of a leak somewhere. Even the pump had lost its prime, which was a little strange. I filled the pump from the jug of water I had brought with me and turned on the switch.
The pressure came right up as the big red pump dug into the aquifer. The well was no more dry than the Pacific ocean. For a minute I couldn't figure out what was what. Little jet streams of fine misty spray were coming from just about every fitting and hose joint there was. It was like one of them water fountain displays without the lights. Then I noticed my belly was shaking. I seemed to be laughing. Well, is it any wonder? Watching this mini water ballet I pictured the whole installation procedure in all it's drama being played out in my head. Lilly wondered what the heck was so funny.
"Nothin'," I choked, still visualizing. I turned the pump off. The whole thing was glommed together with them PVC elbows and couplings. And what had I said about that freakin' PVC bleep? Aw jeez, now they had me talking just like them! Well at least I was only cussin' to myself so it didn't really count. Sooner or later they'd figure out that galvanized fittings were the only thing to use if you wanted to do the job right. Well, the long and the short of it was that between Ralph the pipe wrench and me, we pretty well got all the leaks stopped and Lilly was able to go back to being a sophisticated young woman in the luxury of peace and quiet. Mabel and Eunice and the spark plugs could lounge around Ontario and wax poetic about how each of them had been right in the first place.
Well when you think about it, Mabel had been right in that if they had drilled a deep well and had somebody professional put in the pump, they wouldn't have had all that aggravation. She had a point. Eunice on the other hand was right too in that if they hadn't bought that super duper red thunder and lightning freakin' pump they wouldn't be here right now enjoying themselves. Fair enough. So in the long and animated discussion that followed, they came upon the ridiculous conclusion that every time you do one of these new installations, the fittings and clamps and hoses have to seat themselves. Then after a while you have to tighten them up again and Bob's your uncle. Everything is tickety boo.
As for me, I got into this being right a bit myself. Heck, all they had to do was to use galvanized fittings and pipes instead of this cheap PVC bleep and Bob's still your uncle. One thing it taught me though was that being right gives you kind of a boost. If you work at it, everybody can have totally opposing views and still be right - in their own ways of course. It's all a matter of how you define right.
