If you read about my pants shopping expedition, you know that I'm willing to put up with quite a lot of inconvenience to avoid doing something I hate.
It won't come as a surprise to you then that I'm willing to put up with a good deal more to avoid doing something I'm afraid of.
And when you have social anxiety, one thing that is more dreadful than anything else, socially speaking, is having a stranger in your house. I have anxiety problems having one or two friends in my house. I have anxiety problems having my parents in my house. Much less a total stranger. My house is my sanctuary; my escape from the outside world, the world that constantly proves itself to be a frightening, damaging place.
When I moved into this house, the shower diverter in the tub didn't work properly. You'd get about 10% water through the shower and the rest of it stubbornly poured out the faucet like you hadn't done anything. That was nine years ago. I used a "attach it to the faucet flexible shower head to wash pets and babies with" thing to take showers, holding it over my head the entire time. This was exhausting, by the way.
The tub faucets started slowly leaking when they were turned "off" about four or five years ago.
The flip switch to keep the water in or let the water out started being really difficult to move about three years ago.
A few weeks ago, the faucets on the sink in that bathroom also started leaking from around the base, a slow leak that was difficult to even pinpoint the source (for a while I thought it was just the water that dripped from my hand as I adjusted the temperature distribution of the water).
It was becoming apparent that I really needed to get a plumber in. Unfortunately, most plumbers, or other household type technicians, have a tendency to be larger than life kind of people who have huge personality spreads and make me feel like I'm being shoved out of the room physically just being near them. They talk too loud and move too quick and I just can't deal with it all.
After watching several posts on my neighborhood facebook type group asking for recommendations for this and that, I had an idea. A brilliant idea. I asked for a recommendation for a plumber, but also listed that I was autistic and I needed more than just someone who knew what they were doing and wouldn't overcharge me, and I described what I needed, more or less concisely. (Yes, I can be more or less concise. More than my rambling here anyway!)
I got two recommendations. I looked them both up on the web and found an old webpage with a photo of the one guy. He looked like someone I could deal with. So Friday (the same friday as the pants alteration debacle), I had him come over to diagnose the issues and tell me how much it would cost and maybe fix them then or later; I don't know how that all works, really.
I say "I had him come over" without telling you of the agony of dread and fear that it takes to call a stranger. Sometimes I'll stare at the phone for ages before pressing the "call" button and sometimes I'll just put it away without calling. Most of the time I simply "don't have time" to make the call. But obviously I managed it this time.
He was great. I felt instantly okay with him there. He reminded me of my uncles--none in particular, just that he would have fit well with the family. (I found out why during the return visit to actually fix stuff; he's from Germany like my family's background. Same way--his ancestors are from Germany).
The cats, on the other hand, saw a total stranger and hid. Colby tried to be friendly but the plumber likes cats and tried to pet him, and Colby had to flee and hide too.
When he came back the next Thursday to fix stuff, Colby again tried to be brave. While the plumber was messing about in the bathroom (which is halfway through the house), Colby was in the kitchen, looking out. What he didn't realize was that, due to the age of my bathtub, the manufacturer was unidentifiable and meant that the plumber had to get the stem out, take it to the store where he buys stuff, and match it rather than having the new pieces when he got here. So halfway through the process, he walks back through the house and out the kitchen door, scaring Colby so bad that Colby joined the other two boys under the couch for the remainder of the plumber's visit.
They actually did both come out while he was off shopping for parts; Thimble climbed in my lap to be reassured and Colby was hanging out the way cats do. He wasn't gone long enough for Apricot to emerge.
And when he came back, they were horrified and both dived for the room with the sofa. It got worse because he then spent quite a bit of time fighting with the tub faucets and the diverter. He had to replace the showerhead as well to get it to work, and of course the equipment was apparently as old as the house so there was a liberal amount of rust not lubricating everything.
But when he left, the tub faucets weren't leaking, the shower diverter worked completely, the in-and-out water lever worked much smoother (when I took a shower that night I forgot he worked on it and used my normal amount of force and startled myself about the same as you do when you shut a car door that weighs a third of what you're used to). The other plumbing problems were all fixed as well.
Even better, next time I have a plumbing problem go haywire in my house, I have someone I can get to come fix it that I'm okay with. It'd be nice if the cats were okay with him, but they do emerge eventually and go back to normal, even Apricot, so having things fixed in the house doesn't scar them for life.
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