A Plumber's Tale

As a plumber I get called out to all sorts, but probably the most common is people putting nails through pipes. We have all been there. I don’t think there is anyone who fixes floorboards or puts up cupboards that haven’t been through a pipe or cable. You usually buy a detector after you have done it, and even they aren’t foolproof. The golden rule is don’t pull the nail out. All the time it is in there you have a fairly good seal and hopefully you can drain the system. Not everyone knows how to do that so they get on the phone. Yellow pages, anything, just get a plumber.

So I went to this house because the bloke had been fixing down floorboards ready for the carpet to be laid on Monday. It’s the usual scenario, decorating all done, last job fix the squeaky board. It’s no big deal to me, I’m always very understanding, I don’t take the mick and if it’s a bloke getting stick from his wife for being an idiot I will back him up.

So I turned off the water, found the draincock on the central heating pipe work and popped on the hose. Drain down = cup of tea. Once I hear the air sucking into the pipe I lift the board, and there it is, a two inch straight through the pipe and out the other side. Apart from the fact that the worst thing to fix floorboards with is wire nails, let alone four inch ones, it’s in the middle of the board. That is where the plumber runs his pipe, not at the edges, as you all know. So I said to the bloke, you made a thorough job of that and I laughed. Suddenly his mood changes, his lady is standing there and he says "No way. I didn’t put that thing in. It must have been there already. All I did was tread on that board and it must have pushed it in."

This was a complete joke. It was obvious that he’d nailed it through the pipe. I looked at him with a quizzical expression. He said to his girlfriend, any chance of another tea and she took the hint and trotted off downstairs.

"Look mate I know you think I hammered that nail in but I work with her and when we get to work on Monday morning and she tells everyone that I flooded the house, they are going to rib me mercilessly. Whatever you might think, that nail was in the pipe and I just trod on it.

"It is no big deal it happens to all the time, people put nails through pipes." I told him but I could see he was genuinely terrified that he was going to be a laughing stock. "OK let’s just say it was there all the time, I’ll fix the leak and we won’t say anymore". They kind of left me to it after that while they cleaned up downstairs. When I was ready to go he paid me cash and gave me an extra £20 for coming out so promptly. I couldn’t help thinking that this office they worked in must have been a funny sort of place if people had nothing better to do than rip a bloke apart for a DIY accident. "Where is it you work?" I asked him. The local nick, we are police officers.

I was speechless. I only hope for his sake that when he next has to bend the truth a little he does a better job. OK it was all circumstantial, nobody saw him nail through the pipe, but it was a very shiny two inch nail, there was a hammer, and there were some other two inch nails in his tool box stuffed in the wardrobe. Was she really fooled by this bloke, a fellow police officer? There was enough evidence there to hang a man and if there was ever an argument for not bringing back the death penalty it is characters like this bloke. A fine upstanding officer if ever I saw one.