I don’t think I’m particularly funny. I’ve had funny things happen to me which I’m happy to share with friends and family. But I have never seen myself as a funny person.
I love the challenge of writing a humorous blog post for the laugh link up that has been organized by some of my favorite bloggers in the blogosphere. I decided give it a try because surely a plumber would have a few funny tales to tell.
I do. But sometimes they are a laugh-in- the moment kind of tale and may not be humorous at all. This story is borderline humorous and borderline unprofessional. I recommend all plumbers to think about what they say when they’ve had enough for the day.
A couple of years ago when Dad and I started our maintenance division, we were head hunted by a designer bathroom supplier in Sydney. They had a fault with one of their toilet seats where once someone sat on one, the seat would come off the toilet pan.
Due to our high reputation in the commercial fit out niche, this Sydney supplier was given our name. He was looking for a reliable maintenance plumber that would replace the toilet seats with a new toggle that would prevent the seat from loosening off the pan after use. He was also looking for someone who could handle his niche of clients.
These toilets were expensive. The people buying them were high class people and lived in high class areas around Brisbane. Some were friendly, some were not.
My dad didn’t particularly like changing the toilet seats by himself because he would have to deal with very shirty housewives so he made sure I would be with him so I could keep the peace.
There was one particular job that I wasn’t able to assist with so Dad decided to do it by himself. The house was in the high class suburb of Sherwood.
This particular housewife was very abrupt with my dad and he couldn’t wait to get out of the house once all three toilet seats had been replaced.
Our job was essentially to take off the old toilet seat and use a different toggle to install a new toilet seat. Once the new toilet seat was replaced, it would stay in place and we wouldn’t hear from the home owner again.
A week later, we had a very curt message left on my dad’s mobile that 2 of the replaced toilet seats wobbled when they were sat on and that we had to fix the problem immediately.
It was a hectic day and I didn’t call the woman straight away. An hour or so later after the left message, dad received a phone call from the husband. He was much nicer but requested the toilet seats to be fixed promptly for his wife’s sake.
My dad was flustered. I was fed up. So when dad answered the call from the husband he replied curtly ‘I have never been back to a toilet seat I have replaced so someone in your household has a big butt and is rocking on the toilet seat when they do a number 2.’
I looked at dad in horror. Dad shrugged his shoulders. I could tell he was over it.
There was silence from the other end of the phone. I thought here we go, we are going to get roasted for being unprofessional, and then this will go back to Sydney and we will lose this contract.
But the husband replied,
‘Yeah, it’s my wife, mate. Her arse is the size of the Titanic and she uses the two toilets that have got the loosened seats’.
Dad and I burst out laughing. The conversation could have turned really pear shaped but the husband’s response was so unexpected.
We went over to the house late that same afternoon and the husband let us in. I made a note to look at his wife’s butt to see if there was any truth to what he said. The Titanic was much bigger. 😉
We retightened the toilet seats and showed the husband how to do it himself if it happened to come loose again.
The wife was happy and we left happy knowing the job had been fixed. We never heard from them again. And we kept replacing toilet seats because the all the clients who had been affected by the manufacturing fault highly recommended our customer service.
Have you ever said something you shouldn’t have but it turned out ok in the end? Do share.
I’m linking up with Five Frogs on a Blog for Laugh Link.
If you liked this post and any posts by The Plumbette, I’d love for you to vote for my blog in the People’s Choice Category for the Best Australian Blogs Competition for 2014. You can click on the link below to vote. The form brings up other blogs too which you can also vote for.
