If `Joe the Plumber' is like my plumber, he can go pound sand

There's a great screenplay idea behind the ludicrously over-the-top presence of "Joe the Plumber" in last night's debate:

Blue collar guy chats up a presidential candidate on the stump, finds himself referred to numerous times in the subsequent debate and becomes a national insta-celebrity for his rough-hewn, ornery yet charming nature and overall what-the-hell attitude.

He supports the candidate trailing badly in the polls, so that candidate, to inject life into his sagging campaign, persuades his running mate to step down "to spend more time with her family." Replaces her with Joe the Plumber.

A charmed and ultimately frivolous nation comes around, elects this team, and Joe goes to Washington. The president-elect hits his head getting out of the limo on inauguration day and is incapacitated. Much hilarity and many plumbing jokes ensue. Finally, he detects a suspicious trickle from a faucet during a UN visit and, using his ever-handy tools, foils a plumbing based-plot to take over the world.

The frenzy of attention directed at Joe Wurzelbacher of Holland, Ohio, during lasst night's debate was inevitable, and one of my first thoughts was "Gosh, that guy'd better not have anything even mildly embarrassing in his past." And, well, as it turns out we already know he owes back taxes, doesn't have a plumber's license, is actually named "Sam" and is a Republican . And this is before we find his college girlfriends and the guy he gave a wedgie to in high school.

Maybe Joe the Plumber is supposed to embody or symbolize the salt-of-the-earth, just-tryin'-to-get-ahead workin' guy.

But I don't see plumbers that way. In fact, I carry a major grudge against plumbers. Last year, when we had to do a tricky sink replacement while changing our kitchen countertops, we called a small, local plumbing company we found in the phone book. They sent out a plumber and proceeded to rip us off royally.

Sinkbasekt To install the sink we'd purchased, run new water lines to the ice maker and replace the faucet, drain pipes and minor accessories -- about five hours work -- the company billed us $2,200. On the itemized bill, they listed the sink basket strainer -- the little food trap that drops into the drain opening that you see in image at right being sold for $1.99 at Hardware.com -- at $159.00.

The "top of the line faucet" the plumber sold me for $553 I later found listed at $160. To re-install a disposer he charged $324, a service that I later priced at $100 from a major local appliance store.

I fought the company hard over this outrageous bill and they refused even to negotiate. I complained the Better Business Bureau, but that putative guardian of consumers' inerests deemed it a simple price dispute and wouldn't get involved or take my report.

I hope the plumbing company that came to my house gets a big, fat tax hike under the next president. And if Joe is the same kind of ripoff artist -- which I'm not saying he is -- I hope his company suffers as well.