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anexperimentallife · 8 years ago

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Going through some of my older work, and started re-reading the first story I ever sold...

There are some embarrassing things about it (the obligatory cishet romance is unnecessary and comes off forced, for one thing, and I tied things up into much too neat of a package at the end, plus there are some other aspects I think I need to redo), but overall it reminds me that yeah, although I need to up my game, I DO have chops. I can do this. This isn’t bad at all, IMHO, but I can do SOOOOO much better now. If you want the entire anthology it’s in, grab yourself a copy of The Crimson Pact Volume 2. (It’s also available at Amazon and so on, but when you buy directly from the publisher, you get all formats, DRM-free--whether you buy the hardcopy or just the ebook version--and I get a bigger royalty cut.)

And I am going to do better. Now that I have the rights back, I am going to rewrite the fuck out of this,,especially now that I have better ideas about how to fit it into my revised Quiet World setting.

I’ve posted a little of the beginning before, but here’s a much bigger chunk:

Karma (story excerpt)

by D. Robert Hamm

We hit the interstate like an unguided missile. Needles of frozen rain and jagged blades of wind beat my face numb and turned what was left of my dress into a full-body ice-pack. Even with the heater on ‘incinerate,’ I couldn’t stop shivering, but the outside air was all that kept me from gagging on the smell of my own puke and the rusty stench of blood, so the window stayed down. Between the black pavement and blacker sky, the air was wet and gray. It sucked the vitality from my headlights well before their natural time, but that was okay. I wasn’t paying much attention to the little they revealed anyway.

The man in the passenger’s seat either didn’t feel the cold or was too stoic to show discomfort. The dashboard glow turned his short white beard to green and deepened the age lines in his face. Gods, I’d loved that face growing up. It was my grandfather’s face. But right then, I could barely look at it, because this wasn’t my grandfather, just a sad, confused spirit wearing his body. And even though he was one of the good guys, that didn’t mean it was easy to take.

“You’re going to catch cold,” Not-Grandpa shouted over the storm.

“I’m . . . what?”

Since last night I’d been shot at, whipped, and electrocuted. I’d watched a good man beheaded and disemboweled before my eyes, and learned things about myself, my family, and especially my past, that had already driven other people into padded-room territory. I was marinated in a vile concoction of blood and various other body fluids, quite a bit of it my own, and had spent the last however-many hours fighting horrors that should never have existed. In the middle of all that—because I’m an overachiever—I took time out to kill a man I loved.

And this guy was worried that I’d catch a fucking cold?

Once I started laughing, I couldn’t stop. The kind of deep, full-body laughter that doubles you over and makes your stomach muscles ache for days afterward. The kind that shreds the lining of your throat and rises in pitch to rapid staccato squeaks, like sneakers on a hardwood floor. I held back the worst long enough to wrestle the car onto the shoulder, then let go. The laughter turned to howling, the howling into screams, the screams into sobs, and the sobs into a quiet whimper that finally, gods finally, tapered off, and I could breathe again, in great, ragged gulps. I wiped away a rope of snot hanging from my nose and sat hunched over with my eyes closed and my forehead against the steering wheel, shaking, while the rain pummeled my back with tiny, ice-cold fists.

In shock? Probably. Hysterical? Definitely. Look, I make sandwiches at my family’s restaurant for a living, okay? Sandwiches.

Not-Grandpa waited until I quieted down before speaking. “I’m sorry,” he said. It was the dozenth or so time he’d said it. The line of his mouth stayed hard, but his eyes and his voice were soft and broken. I believed him. Had to believe him.

“I know.” I didn’t mean for it to sound bitter. He’d saved my life after all, and he deserved better than that. I just didn’t know if I could forgive him for not being who I wanted him to be.

* * * * *

A little too “in media res” for you? Yeah, me too.

So here are the vitals: My name is Karma Miranda Rodriguez. I’m twenty-three years old, five foot six, with brown eyes, light brown skin, and dark brown hair that I keep boy-short. I claim to be a size five, and I dare you to say otherwise. I like strawberry daiquiris, support equal rights for supernaturals, am indifferent toward long walks on the beach, and . . .

And oh, yeah—Apparently, I kill demons.

* * * * *

Eli’s Borderland Station, my family’s restaurant, has been the only twenty-four hour eatery on the Kansas City Plaza since back before the Jasonites outed the supernatural community (aka, “The Quiet World”) and we had to coin the term ‘daylighter’ to differentiate plain vanilla humans from those touched by the paranormal. During the riots that followed the Jasonites’ little party, and all through the Apocalypse Wars, my Grandpa Eli and Uncle Garston kept the restaurant open as a free kitchen-slash-aid-station for refugees and emergency workers, and turned the upstairs apartment—which is mine, now—into a de facto headquarters for various peacekeeping forces.

So alongside our Absolutely Killer Turkey Sandwich (made from, according to the menu, genuine killer turkeys), we serve up a mean side-order of history. Obviously, a lot of things have changed since the AWs; for instance, the Plaza, always an upscale shopping district, is now a level four Private Patrol Zone with the best law enforcement money can buy. As you’d expect, our main business is well-heeled shoppers whose sidearms are more fashion statement than personal defense, but we try to keep prices reasonable enough for the average college student, too.

No amount of money will buy you a table or a bar stool in our VIP lounge, though, even if every other seat in the house is taken. The lounge is permanently reserved for veterans, proxies, bounty hunters, elites, and so on. It’s where people with code names like Halloween Jack, Lucy D.T., HalluciNathan, and so on come to catch up with one another, trade information, or just relax. Grandpa and Uncle Garston are technically civilians now, but a lot of the VIPs still use their call signs from way back when, so if someone in armored leathers with notched weapons and a stare that looks like they’re counting the ways they could kill you with one finger says they’re going to see The General and Body Mass, they’re not talking about some secret mission, it just means they’re headed our way for the lunch special.

On Tuesday nights we lock up for a few hours of uninterrupted cleaning with my special patented Karma Rodriguez closing procedure. This involves, among other things, lots of dancing around with brooms and mops, and other Weapons of Mess-Destruction, and me in a casual dress singing along with loud music at the top of my lungs. It’s effective. The more I can make work feel like play, the faster and more efficiently I get things done, and as proof of that, what used to take three people on Tuesday nights now requires only two.

At thirty seconds to zero-dark-thirty on a drizzly February evening, when my grime-fighting partner Jayden and I were the only ones left in the restaurant, I locked the front door and hit the music. My mix for the night was weighted heavily in favor of pre-Apocalypse rock—music that was old before I was born. It was a minor tragedy when it cut off about ten minutes into the shift, right in the middle of David Bowie’s Rebel, Rebel. Jayden and I both trailed off a cappella.

“I didn’t hear you singing if you didn’t hear me,” Jayden said. “We stick together, and nobody can prove anything.” He fixed me with what would have been a deadpan stare if not for that quirk at one corner of his mouth that I thought of as his, ‘our little secret’ smile.

I put on my best film noir ‘tough dame’ voice. “It’s always secrets with you, isn’t it? Fine, I’ll play your game.” Staying in character, I headed upstairs with an over-the-top hip-swaying sashay, to reboot the router while Jayden kept cleaning.

I can’t be objective about Jayden, so I won’t try. He was one of a kind. Literally. Part Aosidhe, part Graealfinsidhe, and part daylighter, Jayden was a medical miracle, and he got the best from each branch of his ancestry. Six and a half feet of lean muscle, flawless skin, hair like pale gold silk, and . . . you get the idea. His ears were only slightly pointed, and with his hair down, he could pass for an exceptionally pretty daylighter, if not for his eyes. Whiteless, and bright turquoise in color. They suited him.

And yeah, I know. If only I wasn’t his boss. Jayden had something of a ‘mystery man’ air about him that only added to his status as local lust-object. Among other things, the way he dressed like a wastelander (only cleaner) but acted like a gentleman fueled speculation. He kept his past and his private life just that, though—past, and private. It was like the world was in love with Jayden, but Jayden wasn’t sure how he felt about the world and didn’t want to lead it on.

When I got back from confirming that the router was indeed fried, those exotic eyes of his were fixed on the big screen in the main dining area. I came up behind him and stopped, gaping. “What the . . . ?”

Just north of us, people were fighting in the streets and looting, while Rushville—Jayden’s neighborhood—burned.

“Short version?” Jayden said without turning around, “They busted the wrong guy for the Taylor murders, so they released him. He lasted a whole three hours.”

“They didn’t give him police protection?”

“He was under police protection when it happened. Now everybody has a conspiracy theory, and apparently with every conspiracy theory this week, you get a free Molotov cocktail kit. Speaking of which . . . ” He rewound a few seconds and paused on a burning apartment building that I recognized as his. “Great firebomb, huh?”

“Wow. I’m sorry.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

He shrugged, his back still to me. “I carry everything really important with me.”

“You want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Want me to leave you alone?”

He paused, as if considering. “No.”

“Okay. But know what? Fuck cleaning. Help me get the trash out, then haul your duffel bag upstairs. You’re staying at my place tonight.”

Jayden turned and looked at me as though I were speaking Swahili. “Your place?”

“You just lost your apartment to a xenophobic asshole with a fire fetish, and you need crash space. Friends do that kind of stuff for each other.”

That earned me a confused look. “No, I just . . . Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks.” He seemed utterly bewildered. So much for his famed stoicism and unflappability. Ah, Jayden. Such a strange, strange boy. I ran up to get my coat and pull on a pair of jeans under my dress, and Jayden and I dragged the first can out into the alley.

I remember the air tasted of cold grease and wet pavement. I remember the electric buzz of the street lamp, and the way its dirty light turned the drizzle into sparse gray streaks like anime rain. I remember the exact cadence of the trash can’s scraping and banging as we dragged it toward the dumpster. How screwed up do things have to get before taking out the trash is a fond memory worth replaying in your head?

We didn’t hear the patrol team until they entered the mouth of the alley, running hard toward us, shouting at us to get inside. The woman’s name was Lawson. She’d lost her helmet, and a sheen of blood covered the left side of her face. Her partner, Hall, had a crack running down the side of his faceplate, and his body armor was shredded in places. They both carried their weapons at the ready, scanning the roofline as they ran.

Before they’d even finished their warning, a clot of shadow and sickening angles detached from the rest of the dark. The Kasu-Hurun slaughter-spider—How did I know that?—dropped from the roof and—The Kasu-Hurun and the bad people are making us walk a long way again. I don’t say how tired I am because I am almost eight years old, and that means I’m a big girl, and because it would make Mommy feel bad that she can’t carry me that far. Mommy and me are in our nightgowns because we were asleep when they—Where were these images coming from?—landed in the alley behind them. It was an impossible thing, eight or nine feet tall, all mottled ochre-and-black chitin, with eight spiked and bladed spiderlike legs from which it took its name, serrated mandibles beneath great protruding compound eyes, and short, thick, writhing tentacles suspended from the underside of a bulbous, misshapen central body.

I shouted my own warning, but Hall was already emptying his magazine at the thing as he backed toward us. Lawson either tripped or dove in our direction, twisting in mid-air to land on her back. She raised her shotgun, and—grabbed us, and it was really late because both moons were out, but they let us put on our boots before they made us start walking. Mommy tried to fight them and she shot one of them but they beat her up and cut her cheek really bad. But she is still the prettiest lady in the whole wide world. It was real people, not Kasu-Hurun, but they don’t act like real people. Mommy says they have bad things inside them called Qlippoth. I think they are telling the Kasu-Hurun what—made it roar as she hit the pavement.

The monster’s cry was like a foghorn made of cats and feedback, a spike that shoved through both eardrums. Lawson had hurt it, taken out one leg, in fact, but it wasn’t enough, and Hall’s automatic gunfire cut off with a sickening, meat cleaver sound as the spider sliced through his neck. Hall’s head flew from his shoulders and bounced against the alley wall while the spider eviscerated his body before it could hit the ground, as if he weren’t–to do. A man tried to run away today, but they caught him, and instead of shooting him a Kasu-Hurun stuck one of its sharp arm/leg things in him and cut him open and played with his insides until he stopped screaming, and I cried, but I won’t cry anymore, because I’m a big girl, and—dead enough already. Even as far back as Jayden and I stood, hot, sticky wetness splattered our faces.

The monster tried to leap toward us, but its missing leg threw it off balance. Lawson’s shotgun was out of ammo, so she fumbled out her .45 and taunted the slaughter-spider while edging toward the side of the alley opposite the door. Sacrificing herself—big girls don’t cry. The demons usually kill everybody, but now they only kill people who try to run away or stop walking before they tell us to stop or people who fall down and can’t walk anymore, but sometimes when somebody falls down they let somebody else make a travois, which is a kind of sled thing that you drag—to give us a chance to get away. My gun was in my purse inside, but even if I’d had it on me, I couldn’t loosen my grip on the trash can, let alone force myself to move.

I caught Jayden’s eye. I’d never before realized–when I feel like crying I think about Daddy. Daddy is a general, which is a kind of soldier who tells other soldiers what to do. He is a long way away fighting other Kasu-Hurun, but when he comes to save us, the Kasu-Hurun and the bad people are going to be sorry. I am going to be a soldier like Daddy when I grow up and—how much he and I communicated without speaking, but with that look, I knew we’d done the same math. One of us might—just might—make it to the door. If we left the other one to die along with Lawson.

Fuck that.

Once I’d made the decision, the tension drained from my body—I am nine years old, and I have been in the prison camp for a over a year. They tell me it is time for the laboratory again, but if I pick someone else to go, they will leave me alone today. If I choose my mother to go they will leave me alone for a month. They seem surprised when my answer is to hold out my wrists for the cuffs. I am the daughter of a general and a hero. I do not run, or let others take my pain. And no matter what they do to me, I won’t let them see how scared I am—the way the fear had, sublimating into the night and leaving me perfectly relaxed. Jayden gave me that ‘our little secret’ smile, and I knew he got it. He understood. Not just what I was about to do, but why.

When anything you do will end in death, make your final act one of defiance.

And so it was that we, about to die, in the most futile and ridiculous gesture in the history of futile and ridiculous gestures, screamed our defiance in the face of death, and charged the monster that would surely kill us.

With a fucking trash can.

We slammed into the slaughter-spider and fell hard, with the trash can bouncing between those giant legs and spilling its slippery contents out onto the already-slick blacktop. The slaughter-spider screamed at the impact, even louder than when Lawson had shot it, and nearly toppled. A serrated leg missed me by inches, and I rolled away, but I’d only be able to dodge for so long. My only regrets were that since I hadn’t properly prepared this body, I would die along with it—again, where the hell did that thought come from?—and that so many things would go unsaid between me and those I cared about. Including Jayden, if I was being honest.

Something hard in my coat pocket bit into my side as I rolled. I’d forgotten about the taser I almost always took with me when I left the restaurant. Even if it was still charged, it wasn’t salvation, but at this point salvation wasn’t an option. Victory was what mattered, and victory was nothing more nor less than continuing to fight until the inevitable happened. I pulled out the taser, flipped off the safety, and sent 50,000 volts into the center of that mass of tentacles, along with all the fury I could muster. The slaughter-spider jerked momentarily, and Lawson took advantage to pick up a piece of steel rebar from the junk pile in the alley and plunge it glove-deep into one of the slaughter-spider’s faceted eyes. Jayden followed with a sharp piece of broken two-by-four into the other.

And as though someone had flipped a switch marked ‘alive/dead,’ the slaughter-spider fell . . . in slow motion, like those television broadcasts of building demolitions. After one final spasm, it was still, and the alley was silent for several seconds except for the buzz of the streetlight. After barely long enough to begin to accept that we weren’t dead, answering cries to the spider’s death scream split the night.

We staggered inside the restaurant as the first new creature hit the pavement, and got the bars across the door just before another slammed against it. I slapped my palm against the ward sigil and spoke the syllables to activate it, then ran to the front and did the same there. After grabbing my gun and other weapons from upstairs and activating still more wards, I hit the ‘dim all’ switch and met up with the others in the kitchen. Lawson used a cabinet as cover, her shotgun aimed at the door, and Jayden . . .

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

I’d been gone perhaps two minutes, but when I returned, Jayden stood transformed, a grim-faced cross between a modern wastelander and a wild warrior from legend, in a combination of armored biker leathers and Fay armor. The hilts of two matching blades extended over his shoulders, and his jacket sleeves were pushed up to reveal Sidhe archery gauntlets—the real kind, not the department store knockoffs. Other weapons clung to various parts of his body, strategically placed so as not to impede movement—blades, throwing disks, bolas, and quivers and bandoliers of bolts and arrows for the quick-load mini-crossbow in his hand and the compound bow housed in a slender case across his back. He shrugged bashfully—Jayden? Bashful?—when he caught me staring. So this was what he meant when he said he carried everything important with him.

The booming of another hit on the door jerked my attention away from Jayden. After a few more tries, though, the spiders seemed to realize that it was futile, and ceased their efforts.

Now that we had stopped racing time, time slowed to let us catch up. Whether from the endorphin rush or something else, I felt disconnected, an observer watching from inside myself. In the dimness, Lawson and Jayden were pale, oh so pale, and heartbreakingly beautiful against the gray and charcoal shadows. I stood with chest heaving alongside them, seeing and feeling and hearing everything as though for the first time, in love with it all. Because we, who moments before had been dead, were alive and more than alive, were filled with life until we could burst from the pressure as it strained against the insignificant scraps of skin and flesh that could barely contain it.

A single glossy drop of blood formed at the tip of Lawson’s finger, creating itself until it was real enough to float downward and finally join its comrades who had already emigrated to the floor to form a puddle, and Lawson was falling, falling, falling behind it as if to join the puddle herself.

I shook out of my trance barely in time to help Jayden take Lawson’s weight. She was conscious, but weak. “It’s okay,” I told her, “We’re going to get you taken care of. Did you call for backup?” Lawson shook her head weakly, closed her eyes, and made a sound between a chuckle and a sob. “Nobody left to call. Even if the radio worked, nobody left to . . . ” she trailed off and seemed to fold in on herself. I’d seen what that thing did to Hall. I didn’t need her to tell me what had happened to the rest of her squad.

#my fiction #Rob writes stuff

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papermoonloveslucy · 8 years ago

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Lucy and Viv Put in a Shower

S1;E18 ~ January 28, 1963

Synopsis

Lucy decides that her home needs another shower and asks Harry to help her install it. Harry and Eddie get out of helping by paying a local plumber to do the job under the guise of being an old friend. After Lucy drives him away with her meddling, she and Viv finish the job themselves, nearly drowning as a result!

Regular Cast

Lucille Ball (Lucy Carmichael), Vivian Vance (Vivian Bagley), Jimmy Garrett (Jerry Carmichael), Ralph Hart (Sherman Bagley), Dick Martin (Harry Connors)

Candy Moore (Chris Carmichael) does not appear in this episode, although the character is mentioned and is the catalyst for Lucy wanting to install a second shower.

Guest Cast

Donald Briggs (Eddie Collins) makes the fourth of his seven appearances as Viv’s on-again / off-again boyfriend.

Eddie’s pet name for Viv is “Tootsie��.

Stafford Repp (Joe Melvin, a plumber from Ridgebury) made a career of playing policemen even before he became famous as Chief O'Hara on TV’s “Batman” (1966-68). He played two different officers of the law on “Dennis the Menace” in 1962 and 1963, alongside “The Lucy Show’s" Mr. Mooney, Gale Gordon. Coincidentally, “Dennis the Menace” had their own Mr. Mooney, who was a police officer! Repp returned to “The Lucy Show” for “Lucy Is a Process Server” (S2;E27) and did 1970 episode of “Here’s Lucy” as (what else?) a police detective!

This episode was filmed on December 13, 1962. It is sometimes referred to as “Lucy the Plumber”.

This is one of two Season 1 episodes (as well as 30 others) that somehow fell out of copyright and into public domain, which accounts for its appearance in low-cost / low quality DVDs.

The original broadcast was sponsored by Jell-O, and featured the product in the opening and closing credits.

There was even a special commercial featuring Vivian Vance, Jimmy Garrett, and Ralph Hart in character extolling the ease and versatility of Jell-O. During season one all actors except Lucille Ball participated in such ‘in-character’ commercials. In her medium shots, Vivian Vance’s eyes are clearly reading from the teleprompter just over Ralph Hart’s head.

The day this episode aired, January 28, 1963, film director John Farrow (inset photo) died. Farrow directed Lucille Ball in the 1939 movie Five Came Back. The film was made at RKO Studios. In January 1963, RKO was known as Desilu Studios and Lucille Ball was its president. Farrow was married to another redhead, Maureen O'Sullivan, and left behind seven children, including daughter Mia Farrow.

Harry’s favorite dish is Eggs Benedict.

When Chris hogs the bathroom, Jerry and Sherman are washing their hands in the kitchen sink before going to the Y to play basketball. Jerry says that at the Y, “They frown on filth!” The Y has been mentioned in several episodes so far, and in “Lucy Digs Up a Date” (S1;E2) we see inside Danfield’s new YMCA.

Reinforcing the YMCA theme, the boys have a pennant for Indian Guides. The youth nature program started in 1926, although the name later morphed into Y Indian Guides, then simply Y Guides.

Lucy prices putting in the new shower with Paisley the Plumber. His prices are so high that Lucy says they are in danger of needing “socialized plumbing.”

“The only way to get clean is to be filthy rich.”

These jokes are clearly about the high cost of health care in America, which was a topical issue, even in the early 1960s. In 1962, President Kennedy appeared at a rally at Madison Square Garden to promote the King-Anderson Bill, an early form of Medicare. In February 1963, just a week after this episode aired, author Ayn Rand gave a talk in Ocean, New Jersey, against socialized medicine.

When the water in the shower begins rising to shoulder level, Lucy says “Where’s Lloyd Bridges when you need him?” Lloyd Bridges was the star of “Sea Hunt” (1958-1961), a TV series about a scuba diver which featured extensive underwater filming. He was also mentioned in the same context in “Lucy Buys a Boat” (S1;E30). Bridges played a doctor on the season five opener of “Here’s Lucy” in 1972.

To allow for another camera angle, the wall inside the shower stall opposite the taps was made of glass. It is not visible when the camera shoots from the front. While it is supposed to be invisible (the ‘fourth wall”) it collects water drops and Lucy puts her hands on it for support.

At one point Lucy doubts Joe is really a plumber and says “You could fool the panel on ‘What’s My Line’.” “What’s My Line” was the name of a popular CBS quiz show which had three blindfolded celebrity panelists trying to guess the profession of a mystery guest by asking yes or no questions. It ran from 1950 to 1967 so it aired during both “I Love Lucy” and “The Lucy Show.” Lucille Ball was a celebrity guest six times between 1954 and 1965, one of which was broadcast just a few months after this episode. Desi Arnaz appeared on “What’s My Line” three times, one of which was alongside Lucy.

In this episode, both the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore are used as punchlines. Lucy voiced Lady Liberty in “Swing Out Sweet Land,” a 1971 TV special celebrating American history.

When the water causes the plaster to fall from the ceiling, the production uses an insert shot of the water-stained kitchen ceiling. Of course, the show’s sets had no ceilings to accommodate lighting, so this shot had to be recreated and inserted into the film.

VIV: “Lucy, I wanna tell you something. This is absolutely the last time I slip into my coveralls to be an apprentice on one of your dreadful little projects.” LUCY: “Aw, no. These are things we’re gonna look back on and laugh at one day when we’re old and gray.” VIV: “And from the way things are going that may be next week.”

This sentimental dialogue at the end of the episode pretty much sums up Lucille Ball and Vivian Vance’s comic partnership. Of course, this is far from the last time she slips on those coveralls to help Lucy get out of a predicament. The pair did indeed stay friends off screen until they were old and gray.

Between takes, the crew kept the set laughing with this funny sign.

Shower Scenes!

She’s not exactly Marion Crane from Psycho (1960), but Lucy’s shows had their fair share of shower scenes.

In the “I Love Lucy” pilot Lucy and Ricky Ricardo are standing in their bathroom in front of a shower curtain.

Ricky RIcardo loved to sing in the shower - which actually moved locations! In “Bonus Bucks” (1954) it was a shower stall and In “Little Ricky Learns to Play the Drums” (1957) it is a tub shower! (BTW, both bathrooms are in their second, larger apartment.)

In “Lucy Goes to Sun Valley” (1958), everyone seems to interrupt guest star Fernando Lamas when he is trying to take a shower. She also interrupted the shower of Cornel Wilde in “The Star Upstairs” (1955).

At the end of “Lucy is a Referee” (S1;E3), Lucy Carmichael beds down in the tub and mistakenly turns on the shower.

Viv took an unscheduled ‘safety’ shower in the chemistry lab when “Lucy and Viv Take Up Chemistry” (S1;E23).

Lucy Carter barged in on Harry’s shower in “Lucy Stops a Marriage” (HL S3;E16) in 1970.

Lucy Carter has a realization in the shower, when she visited Danny Williams on “Make Room For Granddaddy” (S1;E16) in 1971.

Blooper Alerts!

Floor Plan Fiasco! This is the second time we have visited Jerry and Sherman’s bedroom, the first being “Lucy and Her Electric Mattress” (S1;E12). A quick pan to the left side of the room reveals that there is a dresser where the boys’ bunk beds were located. In that episode the Indian Guides pennant was just to the right of the door. It is now just to the right of the shower, which was formerly a closet.

Talk Show Stories! Lucille Ball later stated that she nearly drowned during the filming of this episode, when she went to the bottom and found herself unable turn herself upright. Vivian Vance realized she was in trouble, and pulled Lucy up by her hair. Vance ad-libbed until Lucy could catch her breath and resume her lines. The near-disastrous moment was edited for broadcast so that we see Lucy go down, Viv react to her distress, and then Lucy surface again. It is clear there was an edit in the film due to water levels in the tank between the takes. This scene was probably rehearsed without water and then done in one take. Later in her career, Lucille Ball also stated that she nearly drowned while doing the grape stomping in “Lucy’s Italian Movie” (ILL S5;E23).

Shoddy Construction! Grasping at the top of the shower door, Lucy accidentally knocks loose the chrome trim.

Fast Forward!

At the end of the episode, Lucy convinces Viv to help her plaster the ceiling after the shower damage. Eleven months later, Lucy and Viv are once again plastering the kitchen ceiling after Sherman accidentally leaves the bathtub water running in “A Loophole in the Lease” (S2;E12).

Lucy Carmichael again did her own plumbing in “Lucy and the Plumber” (S3;E2) starring Jack Benny and Bob Hope as plumbers!

A scene from this episode was included in “Lucy and Viv Reminisce” (S6;E16), the series’ only clips episode.

On “Here’s Lucy,” Richard Burton disguised himself as Sam the Plumber in “Lucy Meets the Burtons” (HL S3;E1). Burton recited Shakespeare while fixing her bathroom sink but an unimpressed Lucy Carter refused to pay extra for it!

The episode was playing in the background during the short horror film Room To Breathe (2006). The show’s opening credit sequence was also included. It likely was chosen as it is in public domain and no royalty fee or permission were needed for its use.

In 2017 “Will & Grace” repeated the shower stall stunt in “Who's Your Daddy?” (S9;E2) with Debra Messing (Grace) and Megan Mullalley (Karen) trying to keep their heads above water. In Spring 2020, the pair transformed into Lucy and Ethel for one of the final episodes of their sitcom's reboot. Lucie Arnaz was also in the cast.

It seems that several real-life plumbers on Tumblr are Lucy fans! Or plumbing fans! Or both!

“Lucy and Viv Put In a Shower” rates 5 Paper Hearts out of 5

A nominee for Best Picture 2019 in the Desilu Academy Awards!

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