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LEFT ON PLUM. LEFT ON Farnum....and, yes! Wienstein Supply reads the sign. My hopes ratchet up a notch as I pull into the parking lot. Hadn't a real plumber sent me here? Didn't that bode well for finding a faucet knob to replace the one my tenant broke last week? I am at yet another brick warehouse, and peer around for an entrance as I climb from the car. Showroom? Hmm. That doesn't sound promising; and, strolling amid the fancy new tubs and exotic-looking unplumbed toilets, my chances of happening upon a single little knob do seem remote. But, as in any good showroom, a salesman quickly materializes and is happy to direct me across the parking lot to a more suitable arm of the establishment--to a door I'd overlooked before--Parts Supply.

Parts Supply. Here's another antique building, but this one is old inside as well as out. The cement floor is dirt-colored, and there is hardly an uncluttered space to be found amid the shelves and tables stacked with bins, boxes, bottles, and plumbing tools of every description. A ramp leads down to the counter that divides the room into the 'help yourself' side and the 'we get it for you' maze of floor-to-ceiling shelving. Advertising posters and banners paper the walls, and there is a calendar featuring a well-antlered buck. Tacked up behind the counter, a homemade sign proffers free hot-dogs from noon to two on Wiener Wednesdays. A white electric roaster crowds the space on the end of a folding table nearby. I've discovered a handyman's dream, a plumber's paradise! But a feminine spot it's not--I try to imagine a woman coming in to pick up soldering paste, checking out the sign for Tool of the Month, and leaving with a toothpick in her mouth and two wienies under her belt.

At the moment there are three flannel-shirted, jeans-clad, work-booted men in sight, and they all look up as I enter. One sits astride a vinyl-topped stool, in a row of them that line the customer side of the counter, each emblazoned with the brand-name of a different plumbing supply product. Across the counter an employee is accepting the customer's lengthy order for couplings, nipples, and various male and female plumbing parts.

(Now if you've never been initiated into the world of plumbing, don't let this shock your sensibilities. It's simple--a male plumbing part is any that fits inside another. If it's a female, it's one that receives a male part. It was my father, himself a master plumber, who provided me with this birds and bees explanation. As for a 'coupling,' Dear Reader, you'll have to figure that one out for yourself.)

So, there I stand with the waiting customer, who generously gestures for me to go next when a second employee appears behind the counter, offering assistance. All four men are focused on me when I hold up the broken knob. "I'm looking for a replacement for this. I went to Home Depot, and they sent me here."
"Don't tell me they're doing THAT to us now!" his fellow order-taker exclaims.

"Oh, sorry," the assistant behind the counter tells me, "we can't help you. Only Home Depot and Lowe's sell that brand. I don't know why they sent you here."
One of my fellow customers shakes his head."You're going to have a hard time finding that," he says. "Couldn't they order it for you?"

"I don't know. I already bought and returned one knob from them. The guy at the store just said 'we don't have it. Go to Wienstein's.' " I pause. "He told me he's a plumber."

"A plumber?!" he gives a little snort, and the others shake their heads and laugh in an eye-rolling way, as though this were a sorry joke they'd all heard before. Ha-ha. This guy claims to be a plumber! It was an affront to all true plumbers everywhere!

"If he'd really be a plumber," the man with Mitch on his shirt explains to me, "he wouldn't be workin' there!"

"You need to try Farmer's Supply Tru-Value," the man behind the counter tells me. "They'll probably have it. They have a lotta stuff like that. It's not too far...you know where the high school is...," and he gives me directions, of which I make very careful note. "Your best bet," he adds, just calling it to mind, "is the Tru-Value at Centerville. It's a little ways over there, but if Farmer's doesn't have it, try there." He seems quite confident I'll have success. All of them, these real-for-certain plumbers, are wishing me luck; but I'm by no means optimistic. As I head off in the direction of Farmer's Supply, the replacement knob is looking more and more like a wild goose.

...

(to be cont'd)