PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART X

PLUMBING PROBLEMS: PART X

As soon as he walked in he remarked, “I’d say you have a plumbing problem.  This place smells like a sewage treatment plant.”

By now my patience was wearing thin, “Thanks for pointing that out, I hadn’t really noticed.”  Once I got that out of my system, I asked if he had talked to the wife. 

“Talked to her right after you called me; that is one pissed-off woman.  Asked her what I should do with the truck if Dave doesn’t return for it.  She told me what I could do with it and hung up.”

I could see Officer Marks was as anxious to get involved in this mess as I was.  He checked around the house, spent as little time in the bathroom as possible and said he would send a tow truck in the morning if Dave had not snuck back to get his vehicle.

That night I slept in the guest room.

About mid-morning a tow truck arrived and took away the van.  I phoned a cleaning service and told them about the mess I needed cleaned up.  They came out and in a few hours the house was restored to normal, but I was starting to wonder what that means for my dream home.

Months passed; I contacted the police a few times to see if they had located Dave.  They said they hadn’t.  I did not call Mrs. Dave Watson Jr., but I occasionally thought about Dave, especially when the plumbing acted up, and what could have happened to him when he left our house.  In the meantime, our household had settled into a daily routine.  Laura found a local real-estate job and was getting to know the area and making new friends.  Robin was settled in her new school and getting to know the local kids.  I had set up my office and started crunching data and writing papers.  We had now been in our new house for half a year, and during my workday, I would stop and stare out my window at the huge oak trees and open fields that are mine and think how lucky we are to have found this house.