Are we ever going to fix this pipe? Or is this like the FREE BEER TOMORROW sign painted on the wall behind the bar at a crummy tavern? How droll. I always liked the signs that read, “Cool Inside,” in great big letters with drifts of snow on top of them, too. Then below, in tiny letters, it said, “In The Winter.” I used to hang around the classiest places, huh? Anyway, the geyser of excrement is under control because we’ve stopped using the bathroom for a day. Not really stopped, exactly. Throttled back. Tweaked the governor. Put a lid

After we stopped the bleeding by capping my geyser of excrement, I set aside one day to figure out what was going on underground. A plumber would not be part of the equation. It’s not that I hold plumbers in disfavor, exactly. I have frog-marched a plumber to the property line a time or two when they sawed a house in half just to rough in a 1-1/2″ drain. Other than that, we get on swimmingly. I just don’t need one very often. I’ve always fixed most everything that’s busted in whatever home I’m in, and occasionally built the home,

My little peripatetic journey through the plumbing in my house is getting a lot of attention. The usual rubberneckers who crane their necks when they drive past car wrecks on the highway have been joined by people who seem to know something about plumbing. My plumbing is bothering them. It doesn’t seem to make any sense. Well, I don’t blame them. My plumbing certainly bothers me. Just the plumbing in the house, mind you. My personal plumbing is fine, thanks. But the house is a horror. That’s because my house is in Maine. I’ve been trying to get used to