NED THE HANDYMAN: Good morning. I’m Ned with AAA Handymen.
GARY THE HOMEOWNER: Thank God! I didn’t think you would make house calls on a holiday. I’m Gary. Please come in. Quickly. Do you mind if I smoke? Sorry, I don’t even smoke.
NED: Maybe wait a minute on the smoking. What’s the trouble?
GARY: Well, Ned, I was trying to hard boil some eggs and noticed we don’t have any hot water.
NED: Wouldn’t you heat the water on the range?
GARY: The range? This isn’t the Wild West, Ned — I need your help. Look, I don’t know if this is a city-wide outage or if the whole country has been impacted.
NED: Okay. Are you getting hot water elsewhere in the house?
GARY: I don’t know. Do you think it could be the Russians?
NED: Not likely. We’ll figure this out. So that I understand what we’re dealing with, do you have hard or soft water?
GARY: Um… Well, the water feels soft. You know, I think it is the usual softness of water. Is water softness seasonal?
NED: No.
GARY: It’s definitely average-soft. So I’d say soft. Unless you think it is hard.
NED: Can you point me to your water heater?
GARY: Absolutely! That comes out when you turn the handle on the sink. But it’s a bit tricky… hot’s only on the left. I’ve been meaning to label that with a fire emoji sticker for guests.
NED: No. I mean the actual water heater.
GARY: The water comes hot from the city, Ned. That’s why we pay taxes.
NED: The water heater provides hot water for the whole house.
GARY: Sorry, I have to sit down. I’m not a water temperature expert… I don’t have a PhD in water texture, Ned. I wasn’t expecting an interrogation — I just live here.
NED: It’s okay. Look, I think most of the houses around here have gas heaters. Did you check if the pilot light is out?
GARY: Pilot light? What are you saying, Ned? Does this look like LaGuardia? I don’t see a Cinnabon here.
NED: Gary, the pilot light is a flame that burns —
GARY: A FLAME? Burning inside my house?
NED: The water heater is probably in the garage.
GARY: Oh… Okay. The garage. I know where that is.
…
GARY: Careful, it is slippery. Must be all of that hard water you talked about.
NED: What’s that smell? Do you mind if we turn a light on in here?
GARY: I know the light turns on if we open the garage, so if we reenact my car coming home, I can make the engine noises while you pretend to be my wife and —
NED: It’s here.
GARY: Huh, that must be new.
NED: Gary, why is the water heater painted like an Easter egg?
GARY: That’s for the hunt.
NED: The what?
GARY: Yeah. I was going to hide that in the backyard with all the other eggs.
NED: You really can’t move that —
GARY: It did seem a little bit heavy, so I sawed off all the arms to make it a little easier to move. Also made it look more egg-like.
NED: Gary… those aren’t arms… they’re pipes. You disconnected the hot water from your house, and it is all flooding into the garage. And… Gary… where’s the gas line?
GARY: The SpongeBob-colored arm that I sawed off?
NED: I guess —
GARY: It started hissing at me, so I put some duck tape on it.
NED: DUCT tape.
GARY: No, I know my own tape, Ned. We have tape with all different animals on it for Easter.
I’m not an idiot.
NED: Gary, listen closely. We need to immediately get out of this sealed garage and call —
GARY: This is too much, Ned. I need a smoke.
NED: No!
GARY: What? Oh, right. Mary hates it when I smoke inside. Maybe I just light some Easter candles for —
NED: GARY!