Your True Tales
March 2006 – Page 18

Phantom Plumber
by Mark S.

I live in an older apartment complex, and the plumbing is always breaking down. Recently, I turned on the bathroom sink only to have a growing gush of water pouring out around the handle. It was quite a mess. I sighed, went downstairs, turned off the water flow to the apartment and called the manager’s office to report the problem. They said they’d send someone over right away. I was surprised when almost immediately there was a knock at the door and a blond-haired man in a bright red sweatshirt told me he was here to look at the plumbing. I showed him upstairs, he looked it over and then left to get some tools, since he didn’t bring any with him. When he returned, I stayed with him while he worked, offering him a soda and chatting with him. We talked about the usual things, weather, what was wrong with the sink, etc. He fixed it in about 10 minutes, I thanked him and he left.Though I’d never seen him before during one of my plumbing problems, he was a friendly guy and I enjoyed talking to him.

It was not long after that when two more maintenance guys came to the door and told me they were there to fix the plumbing. I was naturally surprised and I told them that someone had already been over to fix it. They seemed confused by this, so I described the blond-haired man with the red sweatshirt to them. When I saw that their faces remained blank even after I described the man, who I remembered in great detail, I was a little flabbergasted since the man had been in my apartment working for 10 minutes, but the maintenance department had no idea who he was. They wanted to check the sink anyway, so I let them in and they looked it over thoroughly and then asked me about it again. I told them what the problem had been and what the blond man had told me about it. Still looking a little confused, they said it was completely repaired and that there was nothing they needed to do.

They left and later that day the apartment manager called me on the phone to ask about the plumbing. I told her about the blond man fixing it for me and then the two other maintenance men coming by and checking it over. She asked me to describe the blond man, which I did in detail, and then she flat out asked me if I myself had fixed the plumbing problem. I know next to nothing about plumbing and told her so. I was starting to suspect she was just as confused as the two maintenance workers had been, so I asked her for a straight answer: Did she know who this blond man was that came to my apartment?

Finally, a little dismayed, she admitted that she had no idea who I was talking about and neither did the maintenance department. They had no employees who matched that description and the work order for my apartment had only been given to the two men who showed up after the blond man had already fixed the problem. When she told me this, I remembered how he had arrived almost instantly to fix the problem, but strangely had arrived with no tools and had to leave to get them. I asked her about this, but she had no answer as to how he could have arrived so quickly after I had called the office. After that, I’ve always looked around when I see maintenance people working here and there on the property, but I have never seen the blond man again.

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