Santana is snaking my toilets. Cheech sent him.

I wouldn't lie.

We've had flushing issues since we moved into this house but they're like that mysterious noise your car makes. As soon as you take it to a mechanic the noise stops.

On a daily basis the toilets work fine for us. There's only 3 of us and we know we have persnickety potties so we baby them by doing little things like a courtesy flush half way through. You know what I mean.

However we frequently have house guests who treat our potties like they do their own and they expect them to flush like they're supposed to. I don't think we've had a house guest yet who hasn't had to ask for a plunger. That's just unacceptable.

The property management company (let's call them ABC) who takes care of our maintenance issues has sent 4 different plumbers/repairmen out here over the past year. They have all come to the same conclusion: the toilets need to be replaced. Evidently ABC doesn't like that conclusion because instead of replacing the toilets they just send out more repairmen.

Yesterday they called and said for me to expect a call from Alberto who would set up a time to come look at the toilets. I quickly brushed up on my Spanish as I waited for Alberto to call because I've been down this road before. ABC always hires Hispanic repairmen because...this is Houston. That's just what you do. Most of them speak enough English to get by but they often have a thick accent that makes them difficult to understand. I try to be patient, I know they're doing the best they can.

Alberto called this morning and I'm telling you if he had not identified himself I would have sworn it was Cheech Marin on the line and I was being Punk'd. Because in my mind it would not be unusual for Cheech Marin to call me. I halfway expect it. I'm just delusional like that.

Cheech Alberto and I talked about the toilet problem while I waited anxiously for him to start singing Mexican Americans. I was dying to ask him if he had a son-in-law named Jeff. He even pronounced the word "you" like "jew". He didn't even try for the 'y' sound, it was full-on 'j'. His inflection, or whatever you call it, was the same as Cheech Marin's too. It was awesome.

Then Cheech Alberto said he was going to send one of his guys out to take a look at the potties. I thought to myself oh please God, let it be Tommy Chong. We settled on a time and he said for me to expect "a Hispanic man named Santana. Jew know, like the singer". Cheech was sending Santana to look at my toilets. This was turning out to be the best day EVER!

Santana showed up but his English was as bad as my Spanish. I had to keep the conversation on the task at hand or he got lost. He looked at all the toilets, snaked them and came to the conclusion that they need to be replaced.

I guess that means I'll be seeing another repairman in a few weeks. I'm thinking next time it could be Antonio Banderas or Javier Bardem. I know they're Spanish, not Mexican, but my delusional brain doesn't care and fully expects them to show up.