Message #293742

[franksolich]

The next evening, the landlord's son took me to meet the plumber at home.

The plumber was a short, stout, muscular guy with a grimace suggesting a lack of fiber in the diet.  As with my landlord, he also did not know English, and so the landlord's son did the translating for us.  The plumber's wife was a short, squat dark woman with sparse facial hair and a warm, gracious smile.

The plumber wanted to have nothing to do with it, or me.  The conversation was in Greek, but I did catch that he was suspicious I might be some sort of "undercover" for one of the various state agencies, seeking to get him into trouble.

The landlord's son and the plumber paced round and round the couch as they argued; the plumber did not know me, and wanted me to go away.  It took quite some time--probably half an hour, forty-five minutes, before the plumber began to mellow.

The landlord's son pointed out that his parents liked me, considering me honest and reliable and a gentleman, a decent and civilized Republican awash in a neighborhood of greedy conniving cheating Democrats.

As the plumber softened, he reminded me he was no dentist, and there could be problems.

I pointed out that two dentists had shown me the x-rays, and that there would be no problems; the teeth should just pop out.

The plumber reminded me he did not use anesthetics.

I pointed out that I could endure a lot of pain if it saved me some bucks.

The plumber and his wife escorted the landlord's son and me to the "office," the back porch, where there was an old barber chair bolted to the wooden floor.  The open shelves were filled with empty glass jars, covered over with transparent plastic that had gotten coated with sticky dust.  On a crooked table were instruments known to me to be actual dental instruments, although antique and rusted.

I noticed there were straps on the arms of the chair and near where one places the feet; I inquired as to their purpose.

"It hurts, you know," I was told.

I said no restraints, and as everything else looked okay to me, it was a deal.

He quoted me the price of twenty-five dollars, paid in advance, the next evening.

To which I said yeah, sure, okay.

temporarily interrupted and locked because a horse is grazing in the front yard, and I have to go chase it back across the road, into the meadow where it belongs; sorry for the inconvenience