Mayor Bob

This story has almost nothing to do with running, but I just found it in some files I was browsing through and thought it was funny and should be shared. It is all true and happened in Myrtle Beach a few years ago. Mayor Bob lived a few trailers down from my father-in-law and was a friend of his.

We came back from the hospital to Dad's double-wide trailer around 6 pm ready to run, then eat dinner. Unfortunately we discovered the hot water tank supply line had burst, yet again. This time the bathroom was flooded as well as the master bath carpet, and a moat had formed around the trailer outside as water was spewing forth. Christ! Is this really what we need with Dad in the hospital?

I went over to ask Mayor Bob for help, since he did a lot of maintenance around the park. Mayor Bob's wife gave me the number of a 24 hour emergency plumber who I promptly called. It's Saturday night and he doesn't want to come! This is an emergency plumber? He wants to come on Sunday. Let's see, rooms in the trailer are flooded, there is no water supply at all, since the last repair person installed the h2o tank and supply lines improperly, sending all water to the heater first somehow, and the yard is flooded, including under the trailer. I would call this an emergency, but apparently plumbers are different in SC.

Mayor Bob, an eighty-one year old man with 3 brown teeth in separate spots in his mouth, six feet two, 220 lbs, using a walking stick, comes to check out the problem himself. Mayor Bob sits in the bathroom while I turn the water supply back on. In a split second a geyser shoots up inside the trailer and he and J.R. (my brother-in-law) are screaming, "turn it off, turn it off!" Well, a bit too late as the Mayor is soaked. He takes his unexpected shower in stride and begins to completely understand our problem.

J.R. is pissed the last repair we made didn't hold. He storms off to buy more parts, just as mad about the plumbing as the fact I won't go ride with him to Home Depot again. J.R. buys a wetvac in addition to some plumbing parts. Jan, Andrea (daughter) and Bethanie (niece) begin soaking up water using towels.

Mayor Bob sits in the dining room, dripping wet. He tells me the girls can use his bathroom, but J.R. and I can't. "After all, we are men and can pee anywhere, it's not so easy for females". Then the Mayor tells me, "if you have to shit, just pull out some paper towels, shit in them, roll it up and throw it away". Mayor Bob says, "you know, I had this camp out in the woods in the Adirondacks. One weekend years ago I was up there all by myself. The temperature had been averaging minus 20 for days. I couldn't go outside for fear of freezing and I had to shit so bad. No way could I hold it any longer. So I took some ashes out of my wood stove and poured them in a cardboard box. After squatting down and doing my business I put the box outside to freeze the shit so it wouldn't stink. I just couldn't go out and pull down my drawers, he said, my ass would have literally froze. Who wants frostbite on their ass?"

The Mayor leaves us to fix and clean up the mess, and is sorry about all our problems. J.R. and I let the plumbing joints seal for 2 hours, then after everyone cleans up for bedtime, he turns the water off for the night. We didn't need any repeat disasters!