Homage to the plumber

The story so far...
The water was shooting out at over a litre a minute, which might not sound like much but was enough over who-knows-how-many-months to start turning that corner of our garden into a veritable oasis and, once the plumber dug a hole in the right spot to reveal it, enough to create an underground lake for a fairly impressive Underworld Water Theme Park (mud wrestling a speciality). The Theme Park is an idea I need to hold onto because I've now got to raise enough cash to pay the forthcoming water bill. It's either that or selling the house... or skipping the country... except I've already done that once and there might be a limit on how many times a person can skip countries.

Anyway, all power to the excellent plumber. Ignore the drivel I made up about him yesterday -- he didn't pass out from dehydration at all -- but instead he turned up promptly, dug a few holes in record time (especially given that it was a sweltering day), found the problem and fixed it. Pronto. Tres vite. Excellento. Formidable.

In homage to excellent plumbers everywhere (and excluding that peculiar brand of plumber who never ever turns up despite assuring you he will), here's a plumber joke. I can never remember jokes usually, but my father-in-law told me this about 20 years ago and I still remember it.

A little old lady had some trouble with her pipes, so she called the plumber and asked him to come and fix them, which he promised to do first thing the following morning. Being a little forgetful, she forgot he was coming the following morning and went out to do her shopping and then play bridge with her cronies. When the plumber turned up and knocked on her door, her parrot squawked, "Who's there?" And the plumber answered: "It's the plumber, come to mend the pipes." When no one answered the door after a few minutes, the plumber knocked again, and the parrot squawked, "Who's there?" And the plumber answered: "It's the plumber, come to mend the pipes." Still no one answered and so, after a few more minutes, the plumber knocked again, and the parrot squawked, "Who's there?" And, once again, the plumber answered: "It's the plumber, come to mend the pipes." By mid-morning he was crying with frustration and by lunchtime the poor fella had died of exhaustion. That evening, the little old lady returned home and stumbled over someone as she tried to unlatch her door in the dark. "Who's there?" she said. And the parrot answered: "It's the plumber, come to mend the pipes."