The plumber came. For weeks the drain in the tub had been backing up and then the drain in the sink started to back up, too.

I was working from home when they arrived, the building owner, Gus (aka, The Captain), and some representative of the plumbing company he likes to hire. It was after noon, and I was busy working toward deadline. They knocked and I let them tromp into the flat with their dirty boots. But I knew they were coming and so had already removed the towels and the mat from the bathroom.

I left them and returned to my desk and my work in another room, which isn't really a separate place from where they were.

I could hear the water running. The sounds of metal things being deployed. After a while I heard the plumber's exertions. He groaned, "Ohhhh, that felt good."

It sounded like you think it sounded, and my attention was momentarily diverted toward that direction. Gus hesitated long enough for me to guess that he thought it sounded like it really did.

To me, it seemed like he wavered on the choice to join the plumber in his man game or, perhaps conscientious of the resident at home, to ignore it.

He ignored it. "Found something, huh?"

"Yeaahhh, that feels GOOOOOOD!" the plumber sang.

"You found something big, huh?" Gus repeated, even though he was right there in that tiny bathroom with that big man and his snake.

"Look at it push the water back at us. It's BIIIIG!"

Like he hadn't seen it before. His exclamations were so hyperbolical that it was difficult not to think that he wasn't putting on a show just because I was home. I mean, he's a plumber, he's eight-to-five in gross things in pipes. Was this a game he played to keep his job interesting? Would he still expend the energy if alone or just with Gus? My guess: no.

I hate the distraction of people working in the apartment when I'm home, but I prefer to be around so that they don't take liberties with the house, such as, ohhh, washing out their paint-filled buckets in the kitchen sink and splattering paint all over the dishes in the drying rack, which has happened.

I continued working, given the deadline and all, even though my brain was fogged with visions of gnarly red hairballs slimy from being interred in an old, rust-occluded pipe.

And then the mass emerged from the darkness and out the mouth of the trap.

"Aw, look at that. What a mess. It's so big it might clog the toilet!"

In my mind flashed a picture of the biggest hairball in the world wound around the wire.

A few seconds later, I heard the toilet flush. Guess that was a risk they were willing to take.

The plumber turned on both faucets and let them run.

"You get it all?" Gus asked.

Must have, for they packed up.

I walked over there to say thanks and goodbye. The plumber said it was no problem and added a thanks for not first using Drano. Said, "It's hard on the pipes, hard on my tools."

He seemed unphased. No evidence of the passion in his eyes or brow. He turned with his bucket and left.

I went in there afterward. There were shoe prints on the floor and reddish smudges where the monster they dragged from the deep struggled against the pedestal of the sink and the edge of the toilet seat. A reddish brown detritus littered the tub. Gross.

Today I cleaned the room top to bottom. Then I took an epic shower, relishing the absence of standing water all the while.