Florida stories: The best plumber

We moved into a house, here in Florida, that badly needed renovation. We gutted almost every room in this house and started over, ceiling to floor. We did an incredible job and now this house is gorgeous. As I've said many times before (and of course you're really tired of hearing it), we moved here to do bigger and better things in our "church." So, naturally, our first contacts were other $cientologists. Kim and I needed massive numbers of recommendations for people to help us with contracting, electrical, masonry, plumbing, etc. We had so much work to do and we only trusted $cnists to tell us who to hire. Interestingly, some of the recommendations were for non-$cientologist tradesmen. Okay. We'll take a chance. We'll try them.

To be perfectly honest, some of the worst work was done by $cnists and some of the most irresponsible tradesmen were $cnists. One electrician (who was a $cnist) started the work we contracted for and then disappeared without a trace for about 2 months. Then he just showed up one day and asked if we were too mad at him to have him finish the work. Right. That's a good way to do business.

Of all the people we met through this process, the most marvelous one is Eddie. He is a first-rate plumber and a glorious human being. He's in his 70s and can still do the work of a much younger man. Yes, he is slowing down now. We called him this week to take care of a few things that came up on the inspection and he said he couldn't crawl under the house. He also wasn't going to let me pay him for the two things he did fix because of our long term relationship. Eddie told us a few stories of his dealings with $cnists -- they weren't happy stories.

I cried when Eddie left the other day. I know I won't see him again. Even though we weren't "friends," I feel a loss and I will miss him.