Columbo: Master Plumber

You remember how Peter Falk as the TV detective Columbo would always set up the guilty party? He'd pester them with visits and queries all through the show. He'd eventually go back to them towards the end of an episode and ask a few more questions before appearing satisfied. Typically he would turn to leave, only to reverse course and say to the perp, "But one more thing..." You knew he was going to ask the crowing question, the one that would seal the deal and show the guy did in fact commit the murder. It became Columbo's catchphrase. I always looked forward to it.

I no longer do. We have our own version of Columbo who comes into the Shop, a plumber who never seems quite finished with us. We dread his arrival, me brother Phil and I, because he'll always start with a couple things for us to do. Then he thinks another, and afterwards typically a third or fourth. Finally he will always actually leave the old barn, to reappear at the door a minute or two later to say, "But one more thing..."

Yeesh. Especially when both my brother and I are there, if he would tell us everything at once we could both attack his repairs (or fill his orders as the case may be) and expedite things. We've even told him that. He will comply on the next trip, maybe, and then go right back to being Columbo the Master Plumber.

The other day was no different. He didn't pull out of the driveway for 90 minutes. After the first 60 he left only to come back in about that one more thing. Then he sat in his van for 15 minutes longer before finally leaving. It was an eternity for me and Phil; we kept expecting one more one more thing.

I would have confessed to murdering the Queen Mother by that point.