My Neighbor's DIY Plumbing Debacle

(I have his permission to post this)

It was just a little drip...

It started with a drip. Just a little drip.

Not the kind that demands an emergency plumber visit, but the kind that says, “You, a totally inexperienced but overly confident homeowner, can probably fix this in 20 minutes with a wrench and a YouTube video.”

Ah, sweet, naive optimism.

Armed with a pipe wrench, a headlamp (for dramatic effect), and the smug satisfaction of being a “DIY kind of person,” I slid under the kitchen sink. The culprit? A slightly leaky P-trap. Nothing serious.

I shut off the water.... or so I thought. (Spoiler alert: I only turned off the hot water. The cold was still very much alive and vengeful.)

I loosened the nut on the P-trap.

Correction: I attempted to loosen it. What actually happened was more akin to a metal exorcism. The pipe didn't just come off... it detonated. Years of built-up gunk, a mystery Lego piece, and what I can only assume was the ghost of plumbing past erupted from beneath the sink and onto my face.

Panicking, I reached for a towel. In my frantic flailing, I knocked over a half-full bottle of dish soap, which added a slippery gloss to the chaos. As I scrambled to stem the ever-growing puddle, I slipped, somersaulted backward, and landed flat on my back... the pipe now triumphantly gushing like Old Faithful into the ceiling of the cabinet.

I screamed. The dog barked. Alexa, unhelpfully, said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

Realizing I needed to improvise, I began constructing a makeshift dam of towels and one sacrificed bathrobe. But towels don't stop water, they just become very wet towels.

Next brilliant idea? Wet/dry vacuum.

Except I didn’t have a wet/dry vacuum. I had a regular vacuum. With cloth bags.

Reader, let me tell you: vacuums do not like water. They especially don't like gunk water. A few seconds in, my trusty vacuum made a noise like a choking goose, spat out a puff of suspiciously brown dust, and died in my arms like a loyal but under-qualified soldier.

Still in my soaked pajamas, I called my neighbor Ray — a professional licensed plumber with an affinity for Miller Lite and making fun of me.

He arrived within ten minutes, surveyed the scene, and muttered, “What in the name of PVC hell happened here?”

I explained.

He laughed for five straight minutes, paused to breathe, and laughed for five more.

Jerry fixed the pipe in twelve minutes. Twelve. Then he handed me a beer, patted my shoulder, and said, “Stick to IKEA furniture, buddy.”

Since the incident, I have developed:

• A strong appreciation for actual plumbers.

• A twitch every time I hear a drip.

• A solemn vow to never, ever touch a pipe again.

So, to all my fellow overconfident weekend warriors: when in doubt, call Bailey Bros Plumbing & Drain. Or at the very least, make sure the cold water’s off.

And maybe invest in a mop that doesn’t smell like despair.