A Plumbers Saga Part 5: A Tale Of Two Doctors

From Bruce the Tasteless Plumber

As promised, here I am again, with a couple of little mini-stories concerning two separate service calls to two different doctors. The first one may arouse your curiosity as to the state of your OWN doctors practices.

What's Up Doc??

Now a call from a doctor requiring our services is answered almost as fast as one from a bank and this one was no exception. The doctor calls and tells us that his toilets are not running correctly, so off we head to see what the hell is the matter.

We arrive at Dr. Smiths (the names have been changed to protect the not so innocent) home and start our investigation. Dr. Smith explains to us that his toilets have been running quite sluggishly and he doesn't know why. So off we trot to the nearest thundercloset to see for ourselves. We flush the toilet once and it seems to run fine, but upon a secondary flush the water comes up to the rim, hovers there for a second and then slowly drains out. Now to us, that signifies a blockage of some sort not far from the toilet so we lift ye olde shitbowl from the floor and insert the Steel Tape into the gaping maw of the sewer pipe. In he goes for about 6 or 7 feet and hits an obstruction. After a little of the old in out, in out with the tape we feel the clog break loose and move on down the line. Well, that's that we think and replace the toilet on its seat. It's always best to check these things so we try another flush. Whoooosh--down the water goes. Another flush--works fine. Third times the charm we say and flush away----burble,burble, the ceramic contraption says and sloooowly drains away. Shit--apparently the clog just moved from one spot to the other so back up the toilet comes and down goes the tape again. After about 20 feet it stops again and no amount of pushing and shoving will break the fucker free, so other options are debated. "I have a cleanout fixture in my basement if that will help you any" the doctor says, so off we traipse to the netherworld of his basment.

Now his cleanout was situated on a vertical pipe leading down from upstairs through the basement floor at about chest level. We unscrew the cap and insert our tape from there while savoring the fetid odor emanating from the open pipe. There's nothing like the smell of weeks and years old shit. After a little push and shove the tape breaks through the blockage and we can hear the avalanche coming. "Everyman for himself" I yell as we jump away from the pipe, and at that very instant a flood of sewage ejects from the pipe and onto the floor. But wait--this isn't your ordinary liquishit/tampon/toilet paper sewage--this is all of the above mixed with a healthy dose of HYPODERMIC needles. We are literally dumbfounded...just when you think you've seen it all, something new crops up. Apparently someone in the household had been flushing these syringes down the toilet and they precipitated the clog. After cleaning up the mess, we approached the doctor and told him what we had found--he tells us that he had no idea how the needles got into his system. Yea, right, we think to ourselves and hand him his invoice. We know that he nor his wife is diabetic, so that only leads us to one conclusion. He pays, and we leave.

As an aside, one of his colleagues was found in a local hospital restroom, dead on the shitter, with a syringe still in his arm a couple of months later.

Well--this one ran on a quite a bit longer than I expected, so I think that I will save the second doctor story "Rafting on the Seas of Shit" until next Saturday. Have a tasteless week. I know I will.

[[[[[Bruce]]]]]--Tasteless Plumber

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Still waiting for my savior, storms tear me limb from limb.
My fingers feel like seaweed, I'm so far out I'm too far in.
---Peter Hammill
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(Originally posted on Sun, 15 Oct 1995)