I had this job of replacing old galvanised pipes at an old property. The pipes had been slowly corroding and blocking for years and the owner was finally tired of the trickle of water he got. He wanted copper pipes throughout.
Replacing old pipes with copper is a relatively easy job. The only labour intensive bit is digging the trench from the initial stopcock to the house and a practiced plumber could do that without even raising a sweat. After that it was a case of crawling under the house and poking about inside the walls to replace all the internal pipes. Simple enough but it could be time consuming.
I'd fronted up nice and early, warned the owner he'd be without water for half the day, and got to work. Now the owner had assured me that the lack of water would not be a problem, mainly because he and his wife were going to work. It turns out he forgot to tell his daughter, Sally.
She knew I was there. No problems in that area. She just hadn't realised that there would be no water. With no school or work for that day she'd slept in and when she got up she wanted a shower. No water.
She wasn't dumb. She put 'no water' together with 'plumber' and knew I was to blame and came whining to me about needing water for a shower. I looked at her, sniffed rather obviously, and agreed that she needed a shower but the water had to stay off.
She gave me a furious look and stormed off. Ten minutes later she was back, whining that there was no water for coffee. She needed her coffee. I gave her directions to the nearest Starbucks and went on with my work.
She was back with another whining complaint a few minutes later. Why couldn't I just turn on the water for a few minutes. Ah, because it would come spurting out of this pipe I'm holding in my hand, making it hard for me to connect it.
"Just how old are you, kid?" I asked her.
Even though it was a warmish day she was wearing a sloppy tracksuit. She could have been Sally Slender or Sally Stout but the tracksuit effectively hid her from prying eyes.
"I'm not a kid and what difference does it make? I still need some water."
"Just curious," I told her. "Your face says maybe twenty, you whine like an irritating thirteen year old, and you dress like a sixteen year old who's just grown a pair and is embarrassed by them."
For some reason the observation seemed to displease her.
"I'm eighteen," she said slowly and carefully. "I do not whine like a thirteen year old and I am not ashamed or embarrassed by my body."
"If you say so. Now run along and don't ask about the water again. It will be ready when it's ready. Stopping to talk to you is not getting the job done. I'll tell you what. Annoy me again and I'll apply a little penalty to discourage you and give me some peace."
Ever noticed how some people just can't be told. Sally was back just ten minutes later, harping on about how time was passing and I hadn't finished. I turned and gave her a nasty look.
"I warned you," I observed. With that I took a step towards her, took a hold of her tracksuit pants and jerked them down. Just the tracksuit pants, nothing else. Sally gave a startled yelp, stepped backwards to get out of my reach, found the tracksuit tangling her legs, and sat on the floor with a bump. I took the chance to pull the tracksuit pants right off and toss them to one side.
"Now run along and don't bother me."
She bounced to her feet and went flouncing out of the room, leaving the tracksuit pants lying on the floor. Very nice legs she had, too, and a nice swish to her buttocks.
"Nice legs," I called after her but she appeared to ignore me.
And that, I thought, would be that, with no more interruptions. This shows you how well I understand the female mind.
I was lying on my back on the bathroom floor, head under the sink, connecting the new pipes to the taps. There was a nudge against my foot and Sally was saying, "Hey. How much longer? You've been at this for hours."
To add to my irritation, when I jumped from having my foot kicked I banged my head on the bottom of the sink. I was not in a happy mood when I extracted myself and turned to speak to her. I was, however, startled to find that she hadn't bothered to find another pair of trousers or whatever to put on. Her lovely long legs were bare from the ground to where they vanished under her tracksuit top, and that top just barely covered her panties.
"What part of 'stop interrupting me' do you fail to understand?" I asked. "The work will be finished when it's finished. Not before. Give me your top."
"What?"
"Your top. Give it to me. If you have to run around in bra and panties maybe you won't be so quick to hassle me. Now give."
I held out my hand, expecting her to beat a fast retreat. Instead of that she calmly peeled off her top and dropped it over my hand, turned and sauntered out, looking quite stunning in bra and panties. I just shook my head, tossed the top onto the sink and continued working.
The bathroom was the last of the connections and it didn't take me all that long to connect the new pipes. With that done I turned on the water and went around all connections to ensure that there were no leaks. Satisfied everything was water-tight I then turned on the taps to make sure the water was flowing and that the increase in water pressure wasn't causing any problems.
Everything was working fine so I packed up my tools and sat down in the kitchen to write out the account.
"Hey, kid," I called out. "Everything is done and you can have your shower."
"About time, too," said Sally, bustling into the kitchen, "and don't call me kid. I'm not a child."
I looked at her, standing there in bra and panties. Why the hell she hadn't bothered to put on a dress is far outside the workings of my male mind. Maybe she was showing she couldn't be intimidated. Maybe proving she wasn't embarrassed by her figure.
"You're right," I told her.
"I am? Ah, about what?"
"You're not a kid and you have nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about with a body like that. I'm going to enjoy seeing what you can do with it."
"Excuse me?" She sounded a little puzzled.
"Sally, you're standing in front of me in a tiny pair of panties and a bra that flaunts rather than conceals, and you damn well know how good you look. I'm quite sure you also know the affect you're having on me. Now be a good girl and take those things off."
"You have to be kidding. I'm not going to do that," she said, sounding genuinely appalled.
"You are. If you weren't intending for them to come off you'd have put on a dress or something. The reason you didn't was to see if I'd take them off you or what. The answer is what. I'm going to let you take them off and then I'll start appreciating your body."