Years and years ago, I was a commercial plumber. It was one of the lowest points of my life. I was working with a friend and we would share food, Kool Aid and gas money. I was as broke as I have ever been in my entire life and I assume the aforementioned friend, Donny, would say the same. We started in the Sanford hospital on Broadway. My entire time working there, I laughed to myself about how I hoped I never ended up in the hospital there. Not only because, well, who the hell wants to be in a hospital, but because I soldered oxygen lines into rooms there and I didn't want to have my shoddy craftsmanship come back and murder me. But what do you know, 5 months ago, my daughter was born there. Luckily, it was in a renovated section of the hospital. It's funny how things come full circle.

 

Donny and I lasted 2 weeks. In that time, I soldered, cut pipes, carried stuff, the usual crap. But the best day was one of our last. Donny and I were separated right away in the morning, as we usually were. In hindsight, this was a great idea. Us working together would have been a disaster. I was told to head down to a different part of the hospital, one were we hadn't been yet. I believe it was the children's section, but who can be sure. I remember a lot of things about that day, but the first thing that hit me was, “damn, there are a TON of hot nurses here”! I'm sure they were super attracted to me, with my trashy beard (which I still have) and my 6' 2”, 150 pound frame.

My instructions were clear: 'go to this room, tear out this sink, find me and we'll figure out what to do with you from there'. I knew our work there was winding down, so odds are, I was going to be working on some garbage job after my simple sink extraction, so this sink was going to take a while.

 

As an aside, the best part about this whole thing was I had been a plumber for 13 days. Not once did anyone say, “hey, do you know what you're doing there?” Not once! I was told to solder, hang pipe, whatever and I think the only teaching I ever got was not to burn myself with the solder (which I went and did anyway, right on my left hand).

 

So anyway, I'm staring at this sink thinking, 'do I just rip this thing off the wall? Do I salvage the sink? Is the water even off?', things of that nature. I put my hands on my head and looked around. 'Oh, cool!' I thought, probably aloud, 'the TV is still in here'! What are the odds this baby is still hooked up? I reached up, pushed power and TBS was showing Tremors. I almost let out a yelp of excitement.

 

Our boss never checked on us. Ever. And this door had paper over the window on the door, presumably to stop people from seeing this broke ass room. So I did what any 20 year old, slacker, loser would do: I laid down on the hospital room floor and watched Tremors. Almost the whole movie, in fact. I laid with my head under the sink, just in case my boss DID walk in. Which is hilarious. “Why, yes, I have been down here for an hour, but I was just making sure the water was off”. I kept an eye on the clock and probably ripped that bastard off the wall in 6 minutes. I didn't use care and I'm still not sure if that sink was salvaged or not. I left it in the middle of the floor.

 

I found my supervisor and Donny was walking up to him too. They were out of work in the hospital, we were being moved. Donny and I piled in his car and that's were this story really takes place, but allow me to finish my plumbing story. Donny and I got to a large open field with the shell of a building in it. I believe it is now Marvin Windows, or some such factory. We spent the rest of the day screwing blocks together. At the end of the day, our new supervisor told us we would be at separate work sites that upcoming Monday. Neither of us wanted to know what plumbing would be like without the other and neither of us could afford to drive alone. But really, I suspect neither of us wanted to miss out on driving together because we'd be losing our valuable Poison the Well time with one another.

 

Almost every single time we drove to work, we listened to Poison the Well. Some days, it was Smackin' Isaiah (now A Wilhelm Scream) but, most days, it was Poison the Well's Opposite of December. Driving to that horseshit job, drinking 25 cent pops from Wal-Mart and screaming the words at each other is one of the greatest things I've ever done, during one of the lowest points of my life. I will cherish that forever. Lots of Opposite of December in those 2 weeks. But eventually, Donny put in You Come Before You and I heard it. The beginning of "Apathy is a Cold Body". It was borderline life changing.

 

Some years later, John died. I've talked about that more than enough on here, but it's important to the context of the story. I had some albums I liked before John died and a lot of those albums helped me make it through his death. Bane's The Note was a big one, Propagandhi's Supporting Caste was a giant one. But I'm not sure any of them were as big as You Come Before You.

 

I had enrolled in college classes and I was an absolute wreck. I couldn't focus on anything. It was maybe the worst possible time to enroll in school, but hindsight, and all that. Every morning, I would shamble to class while listening to my iPod and thinking about jumping into traffic. For whatever reason, one day I decided to walk to the movie theater after class. I walked, probably, 5 blocks from school to home. Then walked to the Safari, which, according to Mapquest, was a little over 2 miles away. I listened to You Come Before You the entire way. I got to the theater and nothing interested me. I turned around and walked back. Listened to it all the way back, too.

This album still means more than most to me. Some of these songs belong in the Hall of Fame of song writing. “Apathy Is A Cold Body” brings up the most nostalgia and makes me think of plumbing. “Pleasant Bullet” has one of the most brutal endings of any song, anywhere. “Sounds Like The End Of The World” makes my heart hurt. But the best track on the whole album, in my opinion, is “The Realist”.

 

I wish I had some profound things to say about “The Realist”. It just makes me feel everything. The guitar break at 44 seconds is one of the best things ever recorded. When it comes back in at 2:28, it's next level. When the singing drops at 2:50, I've shed tears. Many times. My only gripe is 3:13 on. The song should have just faded out. But nits get picked. You should seek out the whole album, but here's "The Realist". 

"Please just this once, do this for me".