Drainage problems

I have had one man -- Dudley -- doing all my plumbing for 20 years or so. So when one of the drains blocked up I rang him immediately. He is always very good at coming over and fixing things promptly. He even came over at 9pm at night recently to fix a pipe that had sprung a leak.

This time, however, Dudley was interstate on a 4 week holiday. I waited for a week or so thinking that the drainage problem might not be too urgent and that Dudley could fix it when he got back. No go. The problem got worse. So I looked up the yellow pages and found a nearby plumber who had a very confident advertisement about his ability to fix drainage problems.

When I rang him he was apologetic about not being able to come immediately but said he could come the next morning. I said that was fine and he then gave me an approximate time that he would arrive. I was quite impressed by his efficient sound and surmised that his slight accent might be German.

When he arrived he went all around looking at lots of things and decided what he needed to do -- which was about the opposite of what I thought he needed to do. He seemed very confidfent so I just said: "You're the expert. Go to it".

He did some rather amazing and radical things but he was absolutely right. What he did worked. He had understood where the blockage lay in short order and my diagnosis had been way off.

By that time, however, I had worked out his accent. He is an Israeli. I had a bit of a chat with him about that and found out that he is in fact a sabra. But he felt there was too much evil in that part of the world and had moved to a quiet backwater here in Australia to get away from it all.

So all the Muslim nastiness got me a very clever plumber. "It's an ill wind...." And what he charged me was quite reasonable too.