‘Ah, drats!’ I heard my housemate swear from the other end of the house. I reached over and turned off the TV, twisting so I could peer down the hallway from the couch.
‘Everything okay in there, Mick?’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ his annoyed reply echoed back to me. I heard some banging and clanging – another ‘drats!’ – and then he appeared, scowling, in the bathroom doorway. He was wearing his ratty housework-only shirt and had a towel slung over his neck.
‘Whatcha up to?’
‘I’m trying to fix that stupid shower,’ he grumbled. ‘I’m sick of the low pressure.’
‘Low pressure?’ I frowned. ‘Our shower has low pressure?’
‘You haven’t noticed?’ he asked, surprised. ‘It drives me up the wall.’
‘It’s the same as at my parent’s place,’ I shrugged. ‘Guess that’s all I’ve ever known.’
‘Lucky,’ he muttered. ‘My last apartment had the best shower in the world – I hardly ever spent an afternoon looking for a place to buy plumbing supplies in Cheltenham.’
‘What do we need?’
‘A new, uh…’ he scratched the back of his head, ‘…washer?’
‘A new washer,’ I repeated sceptically.
‘Probably.’ He nodded. ‘Or it’s a gasket.’
‘Isn’t that a car thing?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he threw his hands up. ‘I never said I knew what I was doing.’
‘It was heavily implied.’ I laughed at the surly look on his face. ‘Just take a trip and ask someone who knows what they’re doing.’
‘I’m not paying for a plumber,’ he said quickly. ‘They’re an unholy mix of expensive and useless.’
‘Then do the cheap version of asking a plumber,’ I shrugged.
‘Which would be…’
‘You don’t know?’ I asked, my eyebrows shooting up in surprise. ‘Imagine that – me, the first-timer and you, the worldly apartment-dweller, being taught a few—’
‘Just tell me!’ he snapped, and I giggled again at his sour mood.
‘Find a good hardware store in the Bentleigh area,’ I explained slowly. ‘Ask for advice.’
‘That’s it?’
‘What did you want?’ I frowned.
‘An actual tip,’ he said. ‘That’s just… bothering someone on minimum wage.’
‘Fine,’ I said, turning back to the TV. ‘Pay for a plumber.’