Blind drain cleaner

Mr. Johnston was a drain cleaner. And I am not making a joke here; indeed I'm rather in awe. You see, Mr. Johnston was blind. Yet by all accounts he was a fine drain cleaner.

To be sure, he had to have an assistant, someone to drive him to jobs and arrange things. You know, find the cleanout (access point) of the drain and set up the machinery. Then he would lead Mr. Johnston to the opening, give him a pair of gloves and start the cable into the line. But then Mr. Johnston would would take it from there.

I've always understood that blind people have their other senses heightened, and that's how I understand Mr. Johnston did his job. He could feel the cable begin to helix, corkscrew, when it hit a blockage just a bit quicker than others. The sound of the machine gave him clues too as to what was happening. The motor might whine a little bit extra when the machine was under stress. Mr. Johnston could pick that up readily.

It's sounds like a joke but it's true. I knew a blind drain cleaner. By all accounts, he was very good at it.

It cannot be, until it is

I love it when people come to me for my expertise (I assure you that there are indeed subjects however few and far between which I am expert in) yet will not accept my report. You had a problem, you brought it to me, I resolved it, yet you will not accept my explanation? It is even especially exasperating when it's something which is indeed particularly straightforward. It gets my alliteration going.

A gentleman recently brought in a machine which was not running. To save me time (he thought) he had already checked that electricity was getting to the motor. Okay, fine, thanks. He left, and I diagnosed that the power cord was bad. I installed a new cord and hey presto, his machine was fully and completely operational. I called and told him it was ready. "What was wrong?" he asked.

"The power cord was bad."

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Eventually he said, "That cannot be, man. There was power to the motor."

That set me off. Channeling the spirit of me easily agitated Grandpa Joe I wanted to yell, "Yes, that can be, man! It wasn't running, the cord was bad, I replaced it, the machine runs. It. Can. Be." Instead I calmly, rationally explained, "Electricity is a circuit. There's more at work than power getting to the motor. It has to go through the motor and return to its source or an electric motor won't work." I am no genius on this issue. This is Electric Power 101, folks.

"But power was getting to the motor," he replied incredulously.

Did you not hear the words that were coming from my mouth? Still, I replied simply, "The cord was bad, my friend. I replaced it, and your snake works."

He came by, watched it run, toyed with the unit for a few minutes and paid me, all the while looking at me as though I were an alchemist or a charlatan. Dude, I believe you that power was getting to the motor. But it's gotta get back out for the motor to work. It's that simple.

I may be, in fact I am, incompetent on many levels. Spectacularly incompetent on several, I admit. But don't question me on my rightness when I actually am right please.

Pushed too far

Me Pops could hold his temper very well. He held it often when he would have been within his rights to lose it. Still, when he let it go, you were impressed. He let it go once on a guy known as Jake the Snake. And not the wrestler.

I'm not sure exactly how Jake earned his moniker, but I have a suspicion. He argued everything. If a part was available in red he wanted to know why it wasn't scarlet. If told cables were readily available in twenty-five foot increments he'd cry he had to have one thirty foot long, nothing else would do. Yet most of all he argued price. He argued price until the day Pops was sick of it.

Jake came in for some ten dollar part. "Ten dollars," Dad told him.

"You give it to me for seven," Jake countered, demanding rather than asking.

That set Pops off. He slammed the part back into its bin and yelled, and I mean yelled, "Get out of my Shop. I don't want your business!"

"You throwing me out?" Jake asked, appalled. "I can buy you out ten times over!"

Pops barked back like a drill sergeant, "The Hell you can, 'cause I'm not selling. Now get out of my Shop!" Jake stomped out, and Dad stomped into his office.

You could get away with a lot with Pops. But you could still push him too far.

A museum, you say?

I sell drain snakes. My mind is always in the sewer.

I get a lot of miles with that quip, yet it's sometimes not well received. My cousin Patty slapped my shoulder after I told it to a Dominican nun who is a common cousin. "You can't say that to a nun!" she exclaimed. Oh, I don't know. Sister Dorothy seemed to think it funny enough. Patty was laughing too, so I'm not sure it was all that bad.

I'm actually wondering if I could profitably open a museum of drain cleaning equipment. I have several unique things already in my possession, and there's quite a bit more variety to drain snakes than you might think. At one point there were over 15 manufacturers in the US alone, although I'm not sure that's still the case. I know one company for certain no longer in production; actually two now that I think about it. Each company has or had many different models of their own too. It's not as though there have been only one Electric Eel for example.

Shameless plug time: if you need a snake, you need an Electric Eel. I say that because I sell them. But I also firmly believe they're the best drain cleaners out there. That's because they are.

There are all kinds of cutting heads too, and there are water jetters and drain inspection cameras as well. There surely is a varied enough array of equipment that a small building could house many items. And I could finally achieve my life long dream of being a docent.

I'll try to keep my mind out of the sewer for long enough to give it real thought.