plumbing

After my husband and I divorced, my middle son was extremely angry. Most of his anger was directed at me. He needed someone to blame for the break-up I guess, and maybe he was afraid I'd leave him too. He treated me with contempt. He constantly said hurtful things to me and he had fits of angry outbursts.


What he maybe didn't know was the way a mothers mind and heart works. Or atleast my mind and heart.


I wasn't going to give up on him the way I gave up on my marriage. I knew he thought I would, or maybe he was afraid I would. I guess he thought that if I'd give up on the marriage then why wouldn't I give up on him. He was testing me. He was acting out in grand fashion. And he was protesting the divorce.


His behaviors esculated. He put his head through the dining room window while throwing a temper tantrum. He was brought home by the cops for smoking pot in the parking lot of his dads apartment at the time............and while staying the night at a friends house, he ran from the cops when they tried to question him about being out after curfew. ( he ran to a creek in the woods and his boots/feet sunk and stuck in the mud....they caught him) :O)


We tried therapy. We'd go to the therapists office and my son absolutley refused to speak to her. He acknowledged her once, and that was to tell her he wouldn't be speaking to her, ever. The next 5 visits he sat in silence. (I can almost laugh about it now......Almost.)


I involved the school counselor. My son told me he hated my guts for doing that.....


I tried tough love. I tried manipulating him. I tried being patient, and I tried indulging him with love. Nothing seemed to work.


While all of this was going on, I had one plumbing problem after another in our house. The last estimate I had gotten was over 8 grand for a clogged bathroom sink. There was talk of having to remove a bathroom wall & replace well over 12 feet of pipe, ect. I intuitively knew the guy was a liar, and so I had 2 other companies come and give estimates. The 2nd guy said the same thing as guy #1. 3rd guy said he could do it for 1200-3000 bucks. I was overwhelmed, and feeling a little defeated.


I wasn't going to spend thousands of dollars fixing a clogged sink. I'd do without the sink if I had to..................Tantrum fit throwing son decided that with my help, he could probably fix the problem. I didn't have much faith in him at that point, but I went along with him anyway. So together he and I banged with a wrench on all of the exposed pipes in the garage, bathroom sink, and bathroom closet....................Son found the spot where he was certain the clog was....I couldn't hear a difference when we hit that area with the wrench. And I was pretty sure he was just copying something he'd seen on TV. But son insisted it's where the clog would be. Again I went along with him thinking what did I have to lose at this point. My life had fallen apart, and now so was my house. We went to Sears and bought a 5 dollar saw. For hours we sawed through a maybe 3 inch pipe. It was a son-of-a-bitch to cut through..........doesn't seem like it would be, but it was.........and then he moved up about 12 inches and cut through where he thought the clog ended. When that portion of the pipe was removed we noted that that 12 inch of pipe was impacted with dirt. It was as solid as a rock.


We bought a section of rubber pipe and 2 clamps. It cost 10 bucks. We connected the rubber pipe to the existing pipe that hung from the garage ceiling and clamped it at both ends. When we turned on the water it flowed freely and the pipe didn't leak. The several thousand dollar job ended up costing 15 bucks and it only took us 5 or 6 hours to do it.


But here's the thing...............as we were getting closer and closer to fixing the problem, I was secretly wishing it wouldn't end. Because son and I were connecting on a level that we hadn't been able to do for months and months. Even though son thought I was his enemy, he joined forces with me to fight an even bigger enemy...... the clogged pipe, and the rip off plumbers that threatened our family budget.





After we finished the job we high fived each other in a genuine display of affection and victory. We lingered in the garage for awhile talking to each other small talk, neither of us wanting the moment to end, and neither of us wanting to move on.



Eventually we did though...................



Something in our relationship with each other changed that afternoon. We both felt it.......and things have only continued to improve from there.... We both still brag to this day about how we fixed that clog. We even take friends and family downstairs and show them our fancy work. We're proud of it....... We both know we fixed much more than a pipe that day....







PS...............the next day I called all 3 companies that gave me an estimate on the job. I told them son and I did it ourselves for 15 bucks.......and fuck you, but no thanks!


PSS.................the dirt in the pipe was exacly like dirt on a baseball field. Son was playing for the high school baseball team at the time. I'm pretty sure he'd been washing his cleats in the bathroom sink.