It wasn’t a pleasant prospect, being left on the shelf. “A fulfilling future?” mused Tappy to himself. “No more than a pipe dream”, he decided, dejectedly. So, what then? Just go with the flow? …
“You ‘eard anything?” Tappy whispered to the power shower in the next box along.
“Yeah, well, maybe, just maybe. There’s rumours circulatin’. Something’s definitely ‘appenin'”, said the shower head. “I feel it in me water”.
“‘Old up”, said Mrs Basin (or Sara Mic to her friends). “You ain’t got no water”.
“Oh no, is that why I’ve been feelin’ so isolated?”, he replied.
“I just don’t seem to fit in.”
“Don’t wallow in it. Quite honestly, you’re just plumb boring”, she spouted. “Anyway, this ‘ere ‘appenin’ – is it official?”
“At the moment, it’s just a leak”, he admitted.
Well, dear reader, the shower was right and, the very next day, Tappy found himself in new surroundings …
“Reckon I could be quite comfortable here”, thought happy Tappy. “I might just be able to slot in.”
“Must admit, I feel like there’s a hole in my life”, said Mrs Basin, after a while. It was confusion. It was a new situation. She blew hot and cold.
“Screw this!” said Old Monobloc, who was just being evicted. The irony was, of course, that that’s exactly what had happened, in a roundabout way.
“Makes my blood boil”, he said. “I’ve been feeling under pressure for quite a while now. They come in ‘ere, with their horseshoe washers and flexi-tails …”
It began to look as though Tappy might have landed in hot water.
“But you always were such a drip”, said Mrs Basin to her departing tenant.
And maybe the newcomer would put matters right, she thought.
At first Tappy felt like a square peg, about to be put in a round hole.
“Just look at those flexi-tails!”, said Betty Basin, gushing in her praise. “What a turn-on!” She was so emotional, her eyes were watering.
“You ain’t heard the last of me!”, called Old Monobloc. “I’m gonna call a copper!”
“I’ll drink to that!” chuckled Tappy. “Be my guest …”
Richard Fox's blog 