Po the Plumber

I do NOOT own anything!

"What is it with you and romances?" Demi asked.

"Shut up, just give me the story," I said, making sure he didn't read into my thoughts much.

"Well, this one is a bit...cliche," Demi replied.

"Eh, I'll try my best to put a new spin on it," I shrugged.

"Great," Tigress muttered. "Just great and in a time like now!" Cursing under her lips, the tiger rubbed the top of her nose and grunted an angry sigh. Living in a house has some perks. You can have higher credit status, build your family around it, and have a sense of independence. The problem comes when you have to take care of the house. Now money for Tigress wasn't a problem. Being a top-notch lawyer, she could easily pay for damages. The problem came in this particular area. Her plumbing was back up in the worst possible way. Her faucet drain was clogged and the water ran so slowly down the drain that it would flood if she wasn't careful with it. "I'm not calling Luigi again," Tigress muttered. Luigi, her normal plumber, usually did the plumbing for a cheap, cheap price, but the problem was that his jobs would always go wrong. Tigress suspected that every time Luigi came to fix one thing, another thing would happen that only he could fix. Tigress looked at the clock. She had to go to work. She quickly got her things, made a memo on her phone to get a new plumber and went out the door.

The routine of work managed to calm Tigress down, but not enough to the point that it wasn't noticed by Viper, her assistant. "Tigress, is something wrong?"

"Hmm? Nothing, Viper. I just have a plumbing problem at my house and I'm not going to call my old plumber because he's not getting the job done," Tigress complained.

"You get what you paid for," Viper shrugged. Tigress groaned as Crane came into the room.

"I ran the numbers again. They should be right this time," Crane said. He was the business statistician. "Hey, Tigress, what's up?"

"She's having trouble finding a good plumber," Viper explained.

"I haven't even bothered to try and find one yet. I'm too busy," Tigress added.

"Oh, why don't you call my plumber. He's great and his plumbing job lasts a good while," Crane said.

"Price?"

"Reasonable. He lives with his sister to take care of her kids, so he only charges what the parts actually cost plus a little for himself," Crane said.

"How do you know that?" Viper asked.

"He's very open about his life," Crane replied. Tigress squinted her eyes at the bird.

"Sounds suspicious," Tigress cautiously said.

"Just try him," Crane offered, giving her his number. Tigress looked at the card, not really believing the crane. There was no way that a plumber could be cheap and not have a catch. But she needed her faucet fixed.

Po was his office, filing some of the paperwork from his last job. His apprentice came in with a call. "Mr. Po. We have a job we need to look at. It's kind of urgent."

"How urgent," Po asked, not even bothering to look up from his papers.

"Um... well, it's not urgent for us, but she's kind of an important person. She's a lawyer," His apprentice said. Po sighed looking up from his papers.

"Peng, you know I'm impartial to this kind of stuff," Po replied.

"I know, but when's the soonest we can meet her?" Peng asked. Po looked at the calendar on his desk.

"Ask her when she's available Thursday?" Po asked continuing to write. Peng asked her.

"She said she would be best available right around noon," Peng replied.

"Okay, that'll be perfect. Give us the address and we'll be right over," Po answered. The snow leopard nodded happily as he talked with the lawyer over the phone. "This paperwork will be the death of me," Po sighed.

"Why don't you let me do it?" said a familiar voice. Po looked up to see Mei-Mei carrying Lei-Lei, her daughter.

"Sis-"

"Come on, Po. You know I can help you in this," Mei-Mei said.

"I know, but still," Po replied, "You have your work to take care of." Mei-Mei smiled.

"I'll be fine. Take a break," Mei-Mei said.

"I'll take care of Lei-Lei," Peng chimed, taking Lei-Lei from Mei-Mei.

"Spotty baby!" Lei-Lei excitedly said. Po smiled as he tiredly got up from his desk and went to the couch to sleep for a while.

"Enjoy this while it lasts Po," Po muttered to himself, "I can't just keep living under my sister's roof. Lei-Lei will grow up soon, Peng will not be my apprentice, and I'll be back to being a lonely person." Po sighed going to sleep.

"Ten bucks they're going to be late," Tigress muttered angrily to herself looking at the clock. Just as the time turned to noon, there was a knock on the door. Tigress opened the door to see Po in his denim overalls with his apprentice. Tigress, still in her business attire, was pleasantly surprised by the panda's young appearance. Definitely different from what she was used to.

"Hello, Mrs. Fang," Po formally greeted himself, "I'm Po the Plumber and his is Peng, my apprentice. You called us for the faucet."

"Yes, right this way," Tigress replied as they took off their shoes and put on sanitized shoes.

"What exactly seems to be the problem?" Po asked.

"The faucet drain won't go down properly. I keep trying, but the water just won't go down fast enough," Tigress replied. Po and Peng eyed each other. It was amazing what people would do just because something doesn't work fast enough. Po could see that the tiger's status was a posh kind of living style. As they got to the master bedroom, Po instantly picked up on something. She was single. He could tell by the way the room was made out: decorated sheets, few memorial items of family and friends and the smell was purely lavender scented. There were other indicators, but Po chose not to focus on those right now. They got to the faucet. It was very ordinary and minimalist, kind of like her room. Po was glad because it meant he didn't have to deal with accented or fancy plumbing. "Here it is," Tigress pointed it out. Po turned it on and indeed it was almost immediately stopped up.

"Do you... throw your fur down here sometimes?" Po asked.

"Rarely," Tigress answered. "It mostly comes off in the shower." Po and Peng groaned.

"Ah, that's a different job. You don't have to call me unless that one is in need of help. Okay, Peng, go down and see what we got."

"Sure," The snow leopard replied.

"He's your... related apprentice?" Tigress asked, curious as to why he seemed so close to the snow leopard.

"No, but he is basically family in my house. I guess Crane told you about my living situation. Peng's a great helper on and off the job," Po replied.

"How did you know it was Crane?"

"He told me to expect a call from you," Po answered.

"Oh," Tigress said. They were silent for a while as Peng continued to look. "If he's your apprentice why aren't you teaching him?"

"He's got to see what the problem is for himself," Po replied. "Helps him to recognize it better."

"Oh, there's a problem. I just can't believe it exists," Peng grunted as he got out from under the faucet. "Take a look." Po bent down and looked under with the flashlight.

"What the...Who the heck did this?" Po exclaimed.

"What's the matter?" Tigress asked.

"I think I understand why your drain is blocked. It's because whoever did this was a complete and utter idiot," Po muttered under his breath as he got back out. "The trap is tilted sideways," Po said. After the confused look on her face, Po explained more. "The way the drain is supposed to work is to come straight down, hit a U shaped pipe called the trap and then send water out. The... dumb brain that did this managed to get that trap sideways and used a smaller pipe for the output so it seems like it always gets clogged. Who was your previous plumber?"

"Luigi." Po groaned.

"Figures, I worked with him. The way he does his work is that he wants to be hired again, so he messes up something else in the house so you call him again." Tigress growled angrily. "How much did you let him fix?" Po asked.

"It's an old house. I asked him to help with basically everything," Tigress replied. Peng and Po grieved.

"You're going to be calling us a lot," Po said with a little-frightened look. "But right now let's fix this thing. Peng, can you hand me the medium pliers." As Peng did, Tigress's phone rang.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Tigress. You remember that client that you were busy with?" Viper asked.

"The one that was asking for his whole trial to be evaluated, causing us a major headache? Yeah, I remember," Tigress growled.

"He suddenly requested the case be dropped. He's already paid you for the time and effort. We're working on the minor ones so you can stay at home for once," Viper replied.

"That's nice," Tigress sighed. "Looks like this plumbing job maybe more extensive over time."

"You called him? Well, is he decent?" Viper asked.

"I don't know yet. He just got here and considering how Luigi is, he may-"

"Okay, we're done," Po told Tigress. The tiger's eyes popped open.

"Call you back," She said to Viper, hanging up the phone. "You're done already?"

"Yeah, fixing it wasn't that hard. You just have to turn it around a bit," Po replied, "We'll be off."

"Wait, don't you want to get paid?" Tigress asked.

"Something as minor as that where I don't even have to use my tools, I don't charge," Po replied with a smile.

"*AHEM*"

"Peng, on the other hand," Po said rolling his eyes, "Wants to always charge the apprentice fee because he's trying to raise some money for himself."

"Please?" Peng cutely begged. Tigress smiled.

"Ten dollars should be enough for him," Po said. Tigress took out a twenty dollar bill.

"Here, save it for college," Tigress told the snow leopard.

"I intend to," Peng smiled, getting the tools to the truck.

"And here's something for you," Tigress said, pulling out a twenty, but Po refused.

"I'm actually trying to save you money. Considering that Luigi fixed your entire house, you're going to need to save some money for future events. So please," Po said, gently grabbing her hand and curling the money into her paw. "Keep your money." Tigress just stood there silent for a moment. She shook her head awake.

"Maybe you could come back and do an inspection," Tigress suggested. Po thought about it.

"Sure, next Thursday sound good?" Po asked. Tigress nodded. "Sure. I'll make sure that I'll leave some room open for inspection."

"Okay, thank you again um..."

"Po, Mrs. Fang," the panda smiled.

"Just Tigress," Tigress smiled. Peng honked the horn on the truck, indicating they needed to leave.

"The inspection should just take an hour so call me if things don't work out," Po said, rushing to the car.

"I will," Tigress called back. Po got into the car and drove off.

"Well, that was easy," Po sighed happily.

"And she seems very nice," Peng mentioned. Po looked at the snow leopard strangely.

"Why do you say that?"

"Nothing, I'm just saying she seems nice. And she did seem single so-"

"No, Peng. Don't even think about it," Po muttered.

"I wasn't going to say anything," Peng laughed. Po just huffed in annoyance.

To Be continued..