The Irreverent Widow

by Sandi Amorello

Approximately 7.5 months after Drew died, we had a slight plumbing disaster. It was August, and we were one short day away from leaving on our two-week vacation to our friend’s farmhouse in the idyllic mountains of Vermont.  The mere fact that I was going away for two weeks, alone with three children, without any other adult to accompany me…without Drew…was a big deal.  The fact that our washing machine decided to break just as I was about to do mountains of my children’s laundry in preparation for our trip turned out to be an even bigger deal.

I was fortunate enough to procure the name of a good plumber from a neighborhood friend.  I was even more fortunate to find out that, after hearing my tale of woe, he was willing to come over the next morning to check out the state of my washing machine.  It turned out that not only was he a plumber…but a plumber whose wife had died.  A plumber who was a widower.  A plumber who was raising two young children, by himself.

This information, relayed to me during a short telephone conversation, propelled me into a state of panic.  A man was coming over to my house.  A single, grief-stricken man….who knew that I was single and grief-stricken, too.  It was a tiny bit exciting…and more than a tiny bit terrifying.  When he rang my front doorbell the next day, I felt like my prom date had just arrived to pick me up.  It was ridiculous.  Here I was, a 41-year-old woman…and I was about to have a panic attack because a plumber was about to take a peek at the innermost workings of my washing machine.  I was pathetic.

As it turned out, there was something stuck in the pipe.  In the drainpipe of our basement utility sink…which was next to the washing machine.  And whenever we’d run the washing machine…the water couldn’t drain properly, because it was connected to that sink drain.  Now I have forgotten the precise sequence of events, but I do recall the plumber wanting to come back to unclog the sink drain…so my washing machine could work once again. I also recall lying in my bed the night before we were to leave for Vermont… and having an epiphany.  I suddenly knew precisely why that sink drain was clogged.  It was because my mother had been up visiting…and she found the basement sink filled with an assortment of my panties….panties that I had left soaking in there in Woolite…and when she tried to finish rinsing them for me, she pulled the rubber drain plug and …whooops!…a few of my finest thongs apparently were lost in action.

Now, when I remembered that little scenario…I realized that I could not under any circumstances have the widower plumber come over to figure out what was clogging my drain…only to have him yank out a sliver of a lacy black thong as I stood beside him, feigning surprise.

So I did what any woman who was scared to death of any level of intimacy with a man other than her husband would do…I made up some excuse as to why he couldn’t come over that day…set off on the 4 hour drive to Vermont with my children…and left a key so the plumber could figure out what was clogging my pipes after I was at a safe distance… 200 miles away.

Now, the story doesn’t end there.  No…it gets even better.  The plumber calls me in Vermont the next evening…and he tells me he has fixed my washer.  He has fixed my pipes.  My sink.  My worldly problems.  He tells me that I wouldn’t believe what the problem actually turned out to be.  I said I could not possibly even take a guess.  It was then that he informed me that he had discovered some underwear in the drain.  “Really?” I gasped.  “You’re kidding!!!”   I then thanked him immensely for solving the washing machine mystery and offered to send him a bottle of wine, as he would not accept the check I had originally wanted to send him.

The next thing I remember he was asking me if, instead of my sending a bottle of wine, I would instead allow him to take me out for a drink.  I froze, like Bambi in the headlights. Thank goodness I was 200 miles away and on the other end of a phone line instead of in his line of vision.

I politely declined.  I am certain I laughed nervously and made some silly comment.  Thankfully, I don’t remember.  I have erased that part.

All I know is, when I returned home with my children from our two-week hiatus…there was no trace of the aforementioned undergarments lying next to the now unclogged utility sink.  And for the next year I drove around town wondering whether one day I would come across his plumbing truck, parked at the local grocery store… my panties dangling from his rear view mirror.

© 2007 Sandi Amorello/Silver Crayon Studios, Inc.  All rights reserved.
The Irreverent Widow, Silver Crayon Studios and the SC Studios mark are all trademarks of Silver Crayon Studios, Inc.