Rerun: The National Endowment For Plumbing

[Originally published on 25 August, 2012]

knock, knock

“Hello?”
“Hello. I am from the National Endowment For Plumbing, and I’ve got an invoice for two faucets here.”
“I didn’t order any faucets.”
“You don’t have to—the Federal government ordered them for you.”
“But I don’t need any faucets.”
“The government says you do.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t want them, and I’m not going to buy them.”
“Let me put it this way—buy the faucets or go to jail.”
“Well, since you put it like that. Do you have anything in brushed aluminum? That duronautic finish isn’t going to go with the rest of my fixtures.”
“Nope.”
“Satin chrome, maybe?”
“Nope. What you see is what you get.”
“The government decided on the finish?”
“Right. It’s take it or—well since you can’t leave it, it’s just take it.”
“Well, okay, I guess I’ll buy them.”
“Nice doing business with you. See you next year!”
“Wait! What about my faucets?”
“Oh, you don’t get to keep them. You just get to pay for them.”
“So, I have to buy something I didn’t order, don’t need, don’t like, don’t get to keep, and if I don’t I go to jail?”
“That’s right. Say, you’re not one of those anti-plumbing types are you?”
“Not at all. I have a lot of plumbing in my house. I did some of the work myself, and paid professional plumbers for the rest.”
“Then I guess you just think that everyone ought to have exactly the same faucets as you?”
“No, I just think I ought to have the faucets I paid for, and other people ought to have the faucets they paid for.”
“Well, what about the real plumbers, huh? The ones who don’t care about sweating pipes or fixing leaks, who just want to do plumbing for plumbing’s sake? Do you think they should just starve?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they ought to keep their day jobs and study plumbing on the side until they’re good enough to make a living at it?”
“You narrow-minded fascist!”