He that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed.
Around ten-thirty this morning, Gretchen buzzed my extension. “You’ve got Joe the plumber on line two,” she informed me. Being eager to finish remodeling my basement bathroom, I picked up instead of requesting that Joe leave a message.
Tom: Hi there, Joe, how goes it? Did my black marble sunken bathtub finally arrive?
Joe: Hey, Tom, I guess you think this is your plumber, huh?
Tom: You mean you’re not Joe, the plumber who’s remodeling my basement bathroom?
Joe: No, I’m not. This is another Joe the plumber.
Tom: So, you’re Samuel Wurzelbacher, the gentleman from Ohio who’s recently obtained nearly twenty-five minutes of fame under the stage name “Joe the Plumber?”
Joe: No, I’m not! Don’t you recognize my voice?
Tom: I… now that you mention it… is this Joseph Palikowski, my brother-in-law Henry’s cousin from Ohio, whom I met at my sister Rose’s wedding when I was nineteen?
Joe: Damn! Rose always did say you had a photographic memory. Yeah, that’s me.
Tom: Gosh, Joe, it’s been a quite a while.
Joe: Yes, it has. About a year after Hank married your sister, I finished my apprenticeship, got a plumber’s license, and joined Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 50 in Toledo. Been plumbing ever since, no problem.
Tom: But, I take it, you have a problem now?
Joe: Damn right I do. I was talking to cousin Hank about it, and he says, “Hey, wait a minute, you need to talk to my wife.” So I talk to your sister Rose, and she gives me your number and says call you and say she sent me so you won’t charge for your advice.
Tom: Okay, now I get it. Sure – I’d be glad to offer my brother-in-law’s cousin all the advice he needs, free of charge. What can I do for you?
Joe: Well, actually, it does have something to do with that bum Wurzelbacher. It really burns me up, him mouthing off to Barack Obama on TV, then getting his name in the papers and all. He isn’t a member of the plumbers’ union, you know; he doesn’t even have a plumber’s license, for Christ’s sake. What’s more, I’ve heard he never served an apprenticeship, either. What the hell kind of plumber is that, I ask you?
Tom: I’m no expert on skilled trade credentials, but I’d have to agree with you that a guy who was never an apprentice, doesn’t have a plumber’s license and isn’t in the plumbers’ union certainly has what appear to be some pretty obvious obstacles to establishing his bona fides.
Joe: Damn straight. And my problem with that jerk is, for the last twelve years, I’ve called my business “Joe’s Plumbing.”
Tom: Makes sense – you’re Joe Palikowski, you’re a licensed plumber, and it’s your business – sure, what else would you call it, something dorky like “Drain Masters?” “Joe’s Plumbing…” hmmm… wait a minute here while I Google that… Yeah. You’re in very good company, Joe. There are establishments called “Joe’s Plumbing” in Kansas City, Independence and Saint Louis, Missouri; Gillette, Wyoming; Harvey’s Lake and Lock Haven, Pennsylvania; Springfield and Montpelier Vermont; Norcross, Georgia; Knoxville, Tennessee; Albuquerque, New Mexico; Bellevue, Washington; Dayton, Gardnerville, Carson City and Reno Nevada; Dunn and Hayesville, North Carolina; Parkersburg, West Virginia; Great Bend and Independence Kansas; Safford, Arizona; Tyler, Alice, Gregory, Grand Prairie, Lake Worth, Laredo and Fort Worth, Texas; Des Moines, Iowa; Manasquan, New Jersey; Detroit, Michigan; Chicago, Illinois; Chula Vista, Petaluma and Los Angeles California; Columbia, Mississippi; Basile, Louisiana; Shelton, Connecticut; Guelph, Ontario; Lafleche, Saskatchewan; Osoyoos, British Columbia; Key West, Florida; Albany, New York… and here’s my Joe the plumber, over in Herndon, Virginia; and here’s you – Joe’s Plumbing, Toledo, Ohio.
Joe: What? Google put me at the end of the list? I paid a fortune for that Web site!
Tom: Well, you’re not really at the end, Joe. There are about 10,800 hits for “Joe’s Plumbing,” and I’m only on page sixteen of the results.
Joe: Page sixteen?
Tom: Yeah. At ten results per page, you’re in there at about one hundred fifty two or thereabouts.
Joe: But you didn’t name one hundred and fifty one other plumbers just now, did you?
Tom: No, of course not. I only named the ones that were an exact match to a business establishment named “Joe’s Plumbing.” That left out a lot of hits that were like, “Larry and Joe’s Plumbing,” “Joe and Jane’s Plumbing,” “Big Joe’s Plumbing,” “Poco Joe’s Plumbing,” “Doc Joe’s Plumbing;” “Honest Joe’s Plumbing,” “Wild Joe’s Plumbing,” “Crazy Joe’s Plumbing,” “Injun Joe’s Plumbing,” “Mighty Joe’s Plumbing,” or “Papa Joe’s Plumbing,” and, of course, I ignored all those references to “Joe’s Plumbing” that were obviously talking about Mr. Wurzelbacher’s imaginary plumbing business that he says will net him more than a quarter of a million dollars a year in personal income.
Joe: Yeah, right, lots of luck to him with that! And he isn’t even really named Joe! He’s named Sam, God damn it!
Tom: Okay, I get it – you’re very upset with Sam Wurzelbacher for telling the world that he’s “Joe the Plumber,” when in fact, he’s not Joe and nowhere near as genuine and authentic a plumber as you, or, no doubt, all those other guys named Joe in the plumbing business we just found all over the map. But is it really all that upsetting that he’s ostensibly speaking for you and all the other guys named Joe out there who make a living with their hands doing an honest day’s labor in the sacred tradition of the American working man?
Joe: Not just no, hell no! Sam Wurzelbacher can shoot his damn fool mouth off all he wants – it’s a free country and if he feels like telling the world he’s a plumber named Joe and then proceeds go on global TV to show everybody on Earth what an ignorant, stupid, blow-hard, blabbering peckerwood he is, that’s his business. Sam Wurzelbacher’s ignorant, stupid, yakking, yammering, out-of-control peckerwoodiness is most definitely not what concerns me here, Tom.
Tom: Okay, then, what does?
Joe: It’s these other ignorant, stupid peckerwoods out here in Ohio. You see, Tom, the trouble is, it turned out that a lot of them think I’m Joe the Plumber from the TV.
Tom: And then what – they ask for your autograph?
Joe: Autograph? I wish! No! I get a call, I drive my truck to an address, I go in to unclog a stopped-up toilet, and what do I find?
Tom: I can’t imagine. What?
Joe: That they obviously clogged the toilet up on purpose!
Tom: You can tell?
Joe: I have fourteen years of experience with clogged toilets! You’re damn right I can tell! Any plumber could. Any real plumber, at least.
Tom: How does it look when it’s… intentional?
Joe: All right, for example then, when it’s all clogged up with nothing but clean paper towels – or clean toilet paper, maybe – and nothing else. I mean, really, how’s that going to happen by accident?
Tom: Yeah, I guess it would be kind of suspicious looking. But really, now – you unclog it, you write up the bill, they pay and you leave – so what?
Joe: So when I get back to my truck, I find that somebody has let the air out of all four tires, that’s what!
Tom: And you figure those people were Obama supporters who thought you were the famous Joe the Plumber?
Joe: Well, I can’t prove anything, you know – the lady who called me didn’t say or do anything to indicate she doesn’t like Joe the Plumber, but I’ve had plenty of other calls where they did.
Tom: What happens?
Joe: They call me. I arrive and find some bogus plumbing problem they obviously did on purpose. And while I fix it, they stand there and glare at me. Or more often, I get a lecture on how evil the Republicans are, how dangerous McCain’s uncontrollable temper is, and what this country will be like if he drops dead and a fascist backwoods Bible-thumper like Palin ends up running the country. Other times, they criticize stuff Joe the Plumber said about Obama’s tax plan, or national defense or something.
Tom: You do tell them, I presume, that you aren’t the Joe the Plumber they think they’ve lured to their home, though, don’t you?
Joe: Sure I do, but the thing is, they hardly ever believe me!
Tom: Oh? Tell me, what kind of hair style do you wear?
Joe: Ah, you know, working with your hands, around machinery and stuff, and often where it’s really hot, I keep it cropped real close, sort of a buzz cut, I guess. My wife does it for me, about once a week.
Tom: Ah-hah! So, most of the time, you look like Sam Wurzelbacher would look if he missed shaving his head for a couple, maybe three days?
Joe: Hey, now that you mention it, that’s right – I probably do look like him. I mean, I’m wearing a T-shirt and jeans, he’s about average build, kind of muscular, and so am I…
Tom: That’s why they don’t believe you, I bet.
Joe: Yeah, I see your point.
Tom: You know, I’m really disappointed to hear that Obama supporters are behaving like that, figuring “Hey, we’re in Toledo, let’s fake a clogged toilet, call that Joe the Plumber guy over here and give him a piece of our mind.” That’s just plain sick, in my humble opinion, anyway.
Joe: Don’t get the wrong idea, Tom, it isn’t just Obama supporters.
Tom: You mean the folks lining up behind John McCain and Sarah Palin are giving you grief, too?
Joe: No, not grief, really. They make themselves a nuisance in very different ways.
Tom: Such as what?
Joe: Trying to get me to endorse local candidates, for one thing.
Tom: Local Republican candidates, you mean?
Joe: Oh, no, I don’t think the Republican Party, in general, anyway, and certainly not in Ohio, is all that enthused about Joe the Plumber. No, it’s members of the Natural Rights Party or the Natural Law Party or the Libertarians or the Constitution Party or the America First Party or the Reform Party or the Independence Party or the Patriot Party or the Constitutionalist Party – those are the people I’m talking about.
Tom: What’s their M.O.?
Joe: Same scam, generally speaking, as the Obama people. They clog up their toilets or something similar, then lure me to their houses with a fraudulent repair call.
Tom: And then? Besides looking for endorsements, what else to they want with this person they think is Joe the Plumber?
Joe: Well, when I get there and start working, instead of glaring at me or criticizing something Joe the Plumber said, or insulting me, or calling me a hypocrite deadbeat who owes back taxes or something else they heard is wrong with Joe the Plumber, they pitch their organization’s loony ideas instead, then, usually, they try to get me to join up. And not just weirdo political parties, either. I’ve been asked to join the Minutemen, the Citizens’ Watch, Condemned.org, Civilian Materiel Assistance, T.R.A.I.N., Ranch Rescue, the Jewish Defense League, the American Patrol, the Guardian Angels and something called Perverted Justice. Friday, I was invited to join the Ohio Ku Klux Klan.
Tom: Ouch!
Joe: I was thinking, maybe I should tell them I’m a Catholic and they’ll change their minds, but then, I thought, if I do tell them that, will I get out of there alive, you know?
Tom: So what did you do?
Joe: I told them I’d think about it.
Tom: Then what happened?
Joe: They were delighted – they paid my bill in cash, plus a fifty dollar tip and gave me a red-on-black satin robe with matching hood and full Klan insignia. They said it was the uniform of a Kleegle Klavern Kluster Kolonel, which is what they’d make me if I signed up.
Tom: Wha’d you do with it?
Joe: The wife took off all the Klan symbols and burned them in the fireplace – she didn’t want anybody finding them in the trash, I guess. Then she cut the damn thing up and made Halloween costumes out of it for the kids.
Tom: Very practical of her; and frugal, too.
Joe: Hey, I’m just a plumber, you know.
Tom: Speaking of which, has all this “Joe the Plumber” stuff hurt business any?
Joe: On the contrary – it’s better than ever. People still manage to honestly clog up their toilets, wreck their garbage disposals, ruin their home radiator systems and flood their basements trying to do their own plumbing repairs at a pretty steady rate, you know. These bogus calls where people think they’re going to wangle a get-acquainted meeting with Joe the Plumber or vent their rage at him some way or another, they’re strictly gravy – actually, it’s kind of been making up for some of that new plumbing work I lost when housing and office construction hit a brick wall. But money isn’t everything – and if something… happens… on one of those bogus calls, and it could, you know… I keep thinking about that one time when somebody let the air out of my tires. I mean, they didn’t slash them, and it only took me a few minutes to use the compressor I keep in the truck to inflate them back up, but, what if somebody else decides to go… farther… some time?
Tom: Sure, I understand. You never know about people like that.
Joe: Exactly.
Tom: So, okay, let’s start with the obvious solution: change the name of your business.
Joe: Oh, Jesus, I’d sure hate to do that! Changing the name and having to watch all those years of building up the “Joe’s Plumbing” brand in the Toledo Metro Area Services Market going down the drain…
Tom: So to speak.
Joe: Huh?
Tom: As it were.
Joe: What?
Tom: Never mind. Please continue.
Joe: Uh, sure – plus the expense of getting a new paint job on the van, changing our listing in the Yellow Pages, paying that girl with the green hair to update my Web site…
Tom: All right, I get the idea – a new business name isn’t exactly feasible. How about a local advertising campaign, something like “He’s the Other Joe the Plumber?”
Joe: Uh, I checked with the cable company and the local radio stations about advertising last year. Frankly, they’re both way too expensive for what I would get out of it – I mean, I already have enough work to keep me busy between eight to ten hours a day, five or six days a week.
Tom: Even though you lost all that new construction plumbing work when the real estate market crashed?
Joe: Yeah, sure. If I’m not out laying new pipe at a building site, I can still fill up my day by answering the telephone when I wouldn’t have because I was already out working laying new pipe, you know? It’s pretty much a wash, really. What with the truck maintenance and gas and stuff, I clear little bit less per hour doing domestic calls, but not enough to justify spending thousands of dollars on extra advertising.
Tom: So you don’t want to advertise more?
Joe: Not really. Don’t need to.
Tom: I understand. Hold on another minute while I check something. Okay, there. Here’s what you do – you know where Monroe Street in Toledo is?
Joe: Sure, it starts downtown at the river and goes all the way out past US Route 75 to Ohio Route 23.
Tom: So, the 4900 block would be…
Joe: Right around Franklin Park Mall.
Tom: Good. Write these down. Party City, 4269 Monroe Street, Costume Holiday House, 5300 Monroe Street, Suite 5.
Joe: Uh-huh.
Tom: And, um, how about… ah yes, Party America, 6460 Centers Drive, in Holland.
Joe: Yeah, I know where Centers Drive is in Holland.
Tom: How about Ann Arbor, Michigan? Too far for you to drive?
Joe: No, no, not at all, the wife has family in Ypsilanti, right next door. It’s only about fifty or sixty miles, maybe an hour driving north on Route 23.
Tom: Okay, then, Fantasy Attic Costumes, 3010 Packard Street, Ann Arbor.
Joe: Oh, yeah, I know that! It runs out by Eastern Michigan University, past the Washtenaw Country Club and Route 23, then right on into downtown Ann Arbor.
Tom: Fantasy Attic is between Route 23 and Buhr Park, near the intersection of Packard Street and Platt Road.
Joe: Right, right, I got it. So now what?
Tom: I want you to visit one of those places and tell them that you are going to play the leading role in Shakespeare’s “Othello.”
Joe: How do you spell that?
Tom: O-T-H-E-L-L-O: Othello. Rhymes with “Jello.”
Joe: So I have to buy one of those costumes with the pumpkin pants, puffed sleeves and a frilly collar?
Tom: No, you don’t. Tell them it’s a modern dress production, and you won’t be needing a period costume.
Joe: You mean, people perform Shakespeare plays dressed up in ordinary clothes like everybody wears today?
Tom: Sure they do. It happens all the time. They won’t have any problem believing that at the theatrical supply store. But make sure to tell them what you do need is the best, most authentic wig and makeup kit they have – and tell them they have to be waterproof, because the director is staging the production with water pistols instead of swords. If they say they can’t help you, visit another store, until you find a salesperson who understands your requirements, working in a costume shop that has genuine, convincing theatrical wigs and makeup.
Joe: What then?
Tom: Buy the wig and makeup kit.
Joe: What if they ask me about this Othello play I’m supposed to be in? What if they want to talk about it?
Tom: Tell them you don’t want to talk about it.
Joe: Why?
Tom: Because you’re a method actor.
Joe: What’s a method actor?
Tom: Never mind – just tell them you’re one and then pout and look sullen. They’ll respond appropriately.
Joe: Which means?
Tom: That they will stop asking you questions about your production of Othello, quit attempting to chat with you about Shakespeare, shut up and fill your order.
Joe: Okay, fine, I buy this waterproof makeup kit and a waterproof wig that goes with it for this character Othello in some Shakespeare play. Then what?
Tom: Until this “Joe the Plumber” thing blows over, you wear that wig, the makeup and a pair of dark sunglasses to work.
Joe: And doing that will help me how?
Tom: Believe me, if you do this, absolutely nobody will mistake you for Sam Wurzelbacher again – ever.
Joe: Really?
Tom: Guaranteed.
Joe: You’re sure?
Tom: Positive. As a matter of fact, if you wear that wig and the sunglasses, and put on the Othello makeup everywhere that shows, and it doesn’t work, I’ll write you a check for everything you bought at the theatrical supply store and the sunglasses, too.
Joe: Outstanding! I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me about this. Rose was right – you’ve got an incredible mind! Thanks a million!
Tom: Joe, you’re my sister’s husband’s cousin, and that makes you family; and family, well, that’s the most important thing, isn’t it?
Joe: Truer words were never spoken, Tom.
Tom: Amen to that. I got a client waiting outside, so I have go now.
Joe: Goodbye, Tom, and God bless you.
Tom: Yes, God bless us, every one. ‘Bye.