You Fix It This Time!

I spent most of my day doing manual labor again. I helped my father fix a sink at one property and then I helped him fix a light fixture at a different property. My father has a hard time being the bad guy, and by that I mean, he has a hard time confronting tenants about things they’ve done wrong. He usually blames my mother, and says this like, “My wife won’t like that” or “My wife told me to ask about” or “My wife said no.” It’s always been amusing to me because he uses those excuses so naturally. They’re a part of his repertoire now. The bad part is that my mother is usually not around to say anything, so the tenants always view my mother as the bad guy and my father as the good guy who’s on their side.

I bring this up because of what happened today. My father went to pay the water bills for our house and his properties. One of the water bills was extremely high and the lady at the office told my father either he has a bad leak at that property or there are a lot of people living there. My father took me along and low and behold, the hot water in one of the sinks won’t turn off. I was with my father the last time when he fixed some water issues at that house and he told them if they ever had a leak, or anything like that to call him, and not to just let the water run. When I saw there was a problem with the water, I was pissed off, but my father seemed unfazed. Then the woman has the nerve to tell us it’s been like that for a while. What the hell?

So, when we were fixing the sink, we found out that the tenant had another problem that she had called a plumber about because she said if she was responsible for the damage then she wanted to pay to have it fixed. It didn't involve water running so I was fine with her having someone else do it, however, my father volunteered to fix the problem for her. I’m standing next to him ready to pop him upside his head (figuratively, because I would never actually lay a hand on my father). We had to run an errand to go pick up something for the sink, so I talked to him about the situation while we were gone. I told him, “Dad, you should let her get the plumber. She’s going to pay the plumber to fix it, but she’s not going to pay you.” (This is the same lady I talked about before, who has completely ruined a newly renovated home in less than a year. And I don’t even want to think about how much it’s going to cost to fix the house once we get her out.) My father said, “Yeah, that’s true.” Then I put the icing on the cake and reminded him, “She didn’t tell you about the problem. If you hadn’t stopped by today, she wouldn’t have told you at all because she knows that you just fixed it a couple of months ago and that one of her kids messed it up. She said she wants to take responsibility if it’s her fault, so let her take responsibility.”

My father agreed with me, but then when we got back to the house and he pulled the lady aside to talk to her, he had me do the dirty work and tell her that he changed his mind and she could stick with her original plan and pay for it herself. If the sink wasn’t costing my father money, I probably would have told her to have the plumber fix that too, but it was, so I helped my father fix the sink and we were on our merry way.

Status: Wondering where I left my heart.