For reasons we're still not clear on -- we're grateful! -- we've managed to convince a plumber we know to let us listen to his customer voicemails. He won't let us publish the audio but he's OK with our transcribing the better ones and presenting them for their 'educational' (i.e., purely entertainment) value. Only caveat -- we can't ID him or his customers.
Here's another in the ongoing line of 'educational' Burbia Plumber Voicemails....
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Woman Voice (1:30 A.M.): I did what you said. I unscrewed the pipe thing. Oh my God. It's pouring...I, I attached the other thing. Oh...I think...Oh, Oh...I can't, it's gushing out, the floor, oh, f**k. Wait, f*...You said unscrew the... (Pause; water & banging sounds.)
Woman Voice (10 seconds later): Sh*t, I know you said... (Pause; water, splash sounds.) Oh no, oh….God God God Da…You said it was simple…It’s..it’s going out into the hall. [She shouts away from phone.] Jack Jack Get out of f**king bed, you a-…Damn... (Phone receiver seems to drop to floor. More banging.)
Woman Voice (30 seconds later): OK, oh my God, you cannot believe this, there’s a pool, sh*t. I see now. OK, wait, I forgot, I didn't turn off the water valve. First, right?. I was supposed to do that first, right? I’m going to kill him, I am, I’m... [shouts away from phone] Jack what the, get the f*, I'm really going to... (Phone disconnects; end of call.)
B-Take:
First thing: she didn't kill him. The Plumber -- the guy who's inexplicably giving us his juicy voicemails -- says he went to the house the next morning and the husband, Jack, was apologizing to his crazed wife at almost 2 minute intervals. (Why? Because he was in bed, in the middle of the night, sleeping, while his nimrod wife was playing Bob Vila and wrecking the house?) The husband, Jack, looked exhausted, a wreck, but he seemed unharmed, the Plumber said.
The pipe explosion had been in (or around) the upstairs master bathroom and the woman, Cara, managed to flood the adjacent bedroom and the livingroom below. You could almost swim in there, the Plumber said. He was amused. He was laughing. Next best thing to Six Flaggs. (Discount admission to all neighborhood kids!) The livingroom ceiling had started to collapse, the walls were still dripping. Why? Because the "over-eager" (his words) woman didn't listen to the Plumber who earlier in the day had said (according to him), do absolutely nothing, just leave the pipe alone -- it wasn't leaking any more -- and he would fix it easily the next morning.
Instead she went at it, with a wrench and a professional screw driver set and somehow managed to puncture a main water line (not easy to do; so she's clearly got skills -- or at least aggression), in addition to disconnecting the pipes she was working on. And of course she didn't turn "off" the water before assuming her late-night vigilante plumber role. Smart. (And it's all your husband's fault!)
The good news: The Plumber now had a huge job. The bad news: He now had a huge job, working around this woman who, he said, had very deep pockets but who made that nutty woman in Curb Your Enthusiasm (the wife of Jeff, Larry David's agent, who's hilariously evil), seem like Mother Teresa. (That was ours, of course, the comparison to Curb Your Enthusiasm; but the Plumber gave us enough info to know and when we described her, Susie Greene, played by the sick-funny Susie Essman, he laughed and said, definitely.)...overhear more