Last night as I was dutifully cleaning up the dishes I stepped in some water under the kitchen counter overhang and thought, 'just something that spilled' or 'maybe an errant ice cube now melted' and went on with the evening's activities which included watching "Firewall" on pay-per-view. Not a bad movie and I do like Harrison Ford in almost anything.

This morning my lovely wife said, "oh, oh!" Now when your wife says, "oh, oh" you better hop to because you know that something serious has occurred. Guess what? More water under the counter overhang. I got down under the counter, which at my age is a chore in itself, with my trusty flashlight and sure enough whenever she turned on the faucet water dripped on on the floor, surrounding pipes, tubes or whatever the hell they are and in general made more of a mess than we already had. "oh, oh" I said and started to call the plumber.

But just before I dialed the number, excuse me, punched in the number, I thought, "I wonder if my friend Tom might know if there is any warranty remaining on this kind of problem. Now, just to let you know, we have lived in this house almost five years and there is no warranty for leaks that was ever invented that would cover this kind of emergency. It wasn't really an emergency because the water only dripped when we ran the water out of the faucet, or spigot. I never could tell which was which or if there is really any difference but in New England we called them faucets.

I got Joyce on the other end and she relayed my questions about warranties to Tom and as I suspected --- no way, Jose. Joyce asked if I wanted Tom to come over and naturally I answered, "sure."

In quick order Tom was here and immediately began to crawl around under the sink. Now Tom is a lot bigger than I am so I am sure he was even more cramped and uncomfortable under there than I was. But being a good sport he said nothing and with flashlights and tools began to make like he knew what he was doing.

After a couple of trips back to his house to get the 'right' tools he concluded that he couldn't help. Pause. But suddenly I saw light dawning over Tom's sparse pate and he concluded that he might be able to fix the problem standing upright. And lo and behold he worked his magic. The waterfall stopped and he went home happy and I went about the day's business secure in the knowledge that Tom is a wonderful friend and neighbor (and plumber) and that I had saved the cost of a plumber and who knows how much inconvenience. Thanks, Tom, ole buddy! Thanks for the help!