A couple of nights ago, we had something horrible happen at our house. The drain in the kitchen sink backed up. All of a sudden, it was like the entire day’s sewage from our town of 20,000 was in our kitchen. I am not sure if you’ve ever experienced this but there are no words which do it justice.

Lisa immediately reached for the phone. Because I was thinking the plunger would be better at unclogging the drain than the telephone, I asked her, “What are you doing?”

“I’m calling Ed,” she said.

“Ed!?! Do we have to?” I whined. You must understand, Ed is a good plumber. I will give him that but he is extremely rude. He’s always saying mean things to me – usually implying that if I was a “real man” I’d be able to do my own plumbing. He also, well, whenever he bends over to get under the sink, he, well, he breaks wind. It’s really quite repulsive. There’s one more thing you need to know about Ed and that is that he’s a very short man. We call him the “elf plumber” in fact. But not to his face. Of course, his stature is probably handy in that he doesn’t have to bend down real far to get under the sink.

So, Lisa went ahead and called Ed. As always, he promised to be right over and, again as always, he showed up in just a couple of minutes, marching in the back door and into the kitchen saying, “You know, Todd. I am not sure why that sweet little lady of yours puts up with you. Any man should be able to do his own plumbing.”

I replied “But we just love supporting you, Ed.”

So, he set to work and, of course, he ripped a big one as he bent down to get under the sink. But, fortunately, Ed works fast. Within just a couple of minutes, he had the drain cleared and everything was in order. “I’ll send you the bill, Todd. It needs to come out of your paycheck, not Lisa’s though,” he said.

We followed him out to his truck and chatted some along the way. Well, Lisa and Ed chatted. I stayed quiet. Once he was in his truck where he couldn’t see us, I proceeded to say a few things about what I really think of Ed. Lisa stopped me, though, and said, “I know he's not the most pleasant man but one thing you have to admit -- that Rude Elf There – Ed - Knows Drain, Dear.