Plumbing

If your house is visited by a manual-labourer numerous opportunities for exquisite embarrassment present themselves. These should be seized with both hands – along with any particularly heavy items your plumber has with him in order to “show willing.”

If you are a woman, your job is to worry that he will get mess on the carpet – and then worry that it’s obvious that you are worrying about it. If possible, you should start tidying up any mess he makes before he leaves and place plastic sheeting down wherever he intends to walk.

If you are a man, it is important to pretend to know what the hell he’s talking about at all times. You must imply that you too have the ability to carry out the highly complex and brain-taxing job he is about to do for you – and would have enjoyed doing it yourself were you not too busy doing all the terribly important middle class things that you do, like making, I mean writing, er, fixing, erm, anyway…

In conversation, you should stop pronouncing any consonants, lengthen your vowels, address the plumber/electrician/builder as “mate”, enquire as to whether he fancies a “brew” and pepper your conversation with swearwords.

If  he actually turns out to be posher than you are, you can cause similar discomfort by asking why he’s only a plumber – a question he will cheerfully answer by handing you his bill.

If he actually turns out to be a she*, forget everything I’ve written. Forget all prejudice and assumption. Walk away from this blog. Step out reborn into a cleaner, purer world.

*Fascinatingly, google tells me there’s a 3 in 10,000 chance of that happening. 3 in 10,000!