My friend Richard swears to me that he can fix the toilet. “Piece of cake,” he proclaims. “Done it many times.” He tells me he knows just what I need and doesn’t even have to come over and look. He’ll go and pick up the part. “Not to worry,” he assures me, “this item will definitely do the trick.”
I am a bit suspect. Not that I don’t want to believe him. I do. I know that fixing a toilet can be relatively easy and calling a plumber – very expensive, so I am relieved to hear Richard’s confident tone. Money is tight; I am grateful for his willingness. It’s just that I can’t believe he really knows how to fix toilets. I can not believe a Jewish guy could actually be handy.
No, this is not an anti-Semitic slur. I am a Jew myself, and in my experience, Jews do not know how to fix toilets, wire a house, put up drywall or lay tile. Now I know there must be some exceptions of course. Jesus for one, a particularly prominent Jew, was after all a master carpenter who made miracles with his able hands. But in my life, I have never met a Jew who could change a fuse let alone fix anything at all around the house. Until Richard, or so he says.
Richard is not a handyman by trade. He makes his living as an attorney. An employee rights attorney and a good one. But on the couple of occasions he has offered to help me with household handyman issues, he arrives at the door with his red metal tool chest, very eager to help and very sure of himself. He says he loves these kinds of projects. Been doing them for years. His skill, he says, dates back to his years as a machinist on the factory floor, after graduating Swarthmore when he set out to organize workers. He says this kind of work is great compared to writing briefs all day long. He is a born troubleshooter.
The last job he did for me, though, as Richard the Jewish electrician rather than Richard the Jewish plumber, is still giving him pause. He says that even now he’s trying to figure out why the new switch he installed did not work to produce light from the overhead fixture on the porch. He will never give up nor will he ever admit that perhaps the porch light conundrum surpasses his level of electrical expertise. It doesn’t matter. I put candles out there instead. You’ve got to love him for trying.
This time, crouching on the bathroom floor squeezed between the wall and the toilet replacing a cruddy, worn out water fill with a beautiful one piece model, it looked as if Richard the Jewish plumber would be victorious. He read the detailed instructions; I reread them back to him. He pulled here, unscrewed there. He loosened. He tightened. He turned the widget one eighth of an inch counter clockwise holding from the bottom as instructed, and when the cap refused to lift after several attempts, Richard announced that this particular step was not important. It could be skipped. Overlooked and on to the next. Finally, after the thin black hose was cut and secured to the angled clip, pulled just so to avoid crimping, both Richard and I rejoiced in the sweet silence of a dripless tank.
The next morning a little pool of water had formed by the base of the toilet. With great hesitancy, I called Richard before he went off to the office. “Houston, I think we’ve got a problem,” I said trying to make light of defeat. There seems to be a slight leak. I hated to have to break it to him. Feared for what lay ahead.
“I’ll be right over,” he said, “even though the guarantee has expired.” (Clearly, Jewish plumbers are comedians too.) And he came. At 7:30am, dressed in his plaid flannel shirt, he headed upstairs to assess the problem, eager to solve yet another mystery. Draping himself around the girth of the bowl, head down, he discovered a loose bolt between the tank and the bowl, its threads worn smooth. He tightened it and thought that it might be ok, but he wanted me to know that he was up to the task if it required more. As he spelled out several possible scenarios that might in fact be necessary, it seemed as if he were hoping it would require more. “I’ve replaced many a toilet, you know,” he reassured me. “There’s really nothing to it.” I look at him with dismay, picturing the possibility, yet wanting desperately to believe – that if you’re a Jewish plumber, you can pretty much walk on water.
Sixties Chick 
December 7, 2008 at 2:20 pm |
Too funny! However, you are forgetting (or maybe you never knew), that my dad (your uncle) was not half bad as a Jewish handman! It was his son (my brother, your cousin) who clearly did not inherit those handyman genes!
Steve: are you reading this?
December 9, 2008 at 11:39 pm |
I love the part when things were not going as they should that Richard decides that that particular step was not important and could be skipped!
Now that sounds like a Jewish plumber!
October 26, 2015 at 4:56 am |
That’s a wise answer to a tricky qusteion