{"id":15911,"date":"2026-10-08T05:42:39","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T05:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/?p=15911"},"modified":"2026-10-08T05:42:39","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T05:42:39","slug":"my-husband-invited-his-ex-to-our-party-without-asking-me-so-i-decided-how-i-would-handle-the-situation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/?p=15911","title":{"rendered":"My Husband Invited His Ex to Our Party Without Asking Me\u2014So I Decided How I Would Handle the Situation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first pipe I ever fixed was under my grandmother\u2019s kitchen sink in Queens. I was twelve years old.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

My father lay on his back on the linoleum next to me with a flashlight in his teeth. He didn\u2019t touch anything. He just pointed.<\/p>\n

\u201cSee that?\u201d he said, around the flashlight. \u201cThat little drip. Right there at the joint.\u201d<\/p>\n

I saw it. A single bead of water, swelling slowly at the bottom of a pipe, then falling. Plip. Into a coffee can Grandma had put down to catch it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow long\u2019s it been doing that?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThree years,\u201d my father said. \u201cYour grandmother\u2019s been emptying that coffee can every morning for three years. She says it\u2019s no big deal. It\u2019s just a little drip.\u201d He took the flashlight out of his<\/p>\n

mouth and pointed it at the cabinet floor. \u201cNow look at this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The wood under the pipe was dark. Soft. When I pressed my thumb into it, it gave, like wet bread.<\/p>\n

\u201cRotten,\u201d my father said. \u201cAll the way through. Another year, this whole cabinet comes down.<\/p>\n

Maybe the floor under it.\u201d He handed me a wrench. \u201cMost of the damage in a house doesn\u2019t come from the big disasters, Tessie. The burst pipe. The flood. Those, everybody notices. Everybody comes running.\u201d He tapped the dark wood. \u201cIt comes from the little leaks nobody<\/p>\n

bothers to fix. Because they\u2019re quiet. Because you get used to them. Because emptying a coffee can every morning feels easier than crawling under a sink.\u201d<\/p>\n

I fixed it. It took me forty-five minutes and I scraped all my knuckles. He didn\u2019t help once.<\/p>\n

When the joint was dry, he shined the flashlight on it for a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood work,\u201d he said. \u201cNow you know the most important thing about plumbing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you hear a drip,\u201d he said, \u201cdon\u2019t get used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

My name is Teresa Moreno. Everybody calls me Tess. I\u2019m thirty-one. I\u2019m a licensed master plumber in the state of New York.<\/p>\n

My father, Ray Moreno, ran Moreno Plumbing out of a garage in Jackson Heights for thirty-two years. One van. One phone line. A reputation in every building from Astoria to Flushing. He was the guy the supers called when the other guys couldn\u2019t figure it out.<\/p>\n

I rode in that van every summer from the time I was ten. By sixteen, I could sweat copper. By twenty, I could run a gas line. By twenty-four, I had my master\u2019s license. The youngest woman to get one in Queens that year.<\/p>\n

My father taped the newspaper article about it to the dashboard of the van. It stayed there until the day he died.<\/p>\n

He died four years ago. A heart attack. On a job. Under a sink in a building on 82nd Street, with a<\/p>\n

wrench in his hand.<\/p>\n

I kept the wrench. A twelve-inch Ridgid pipe wrench with a red handle worn pale where his hand used to grip it. I carry it in my own van now. I painted MORENO & DAUGHTER on the side, under<\/p>\n

his old lettering. Even though I\u2019m the only one left.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t tell you that to make you sad. I tell you because I want you to understand who I am. I\u2019m somebody who crawls under sinks. Who finds the drip. Who doesn\u2019t get used to it.<\/p>\n

Or I used to be.<\/p>\n

I met Cole Whitaker when I was twenty-eight.<\/p>\n

It was at a rooftop bar in Williamsburg. My best friend, Sarah, dragged me there for her birthday.<\/p>\n

I was still in my work boots because I\u2019d come straight from a job in Greenpoint. Everyone else was in heels.<\/p>\n

Cole was standing by the railing with a group of guys in nice jackets. He was tall and handsome<\/p>\n

and very sure of himself, with dark hair and a good smile and the kind of laugh that makes everybody in a room turn around. He worked in marketing. For a big agency in Manhattan. He told me about it for twenty minutes. The campaigns. The clients. The award they\u2019d almost won.<\/p>\n

Then he asked what I did.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m a plumber,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

He laughed. He thought I was joking.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, really,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cReally,\u201d I said. \u201cMaster plumber. I\u2019ve got my own van.\u201d<\/p>\n

He looked at my work boots. My hands. The little scar on my thumb from a pipe cutter when I<\/p>\n

was nineteen.<\/p>\n

\u201cHuh,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s\u2026 actually kind of hot.\u201d<\/p>\n

I should\u2019ve noticed then. The actually. The surprise in it. Like a woman being good at something<\/p>\n

with her hands was a fun little novelty.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t notice. He was funny and charming and he walked me to the subway and kissed me on the corner of Bedford Avenue.<\/p>\n

We dated for two years. We got married at city hall on a Thursday in October. Sarah was our witness. Cole\u2019s friends came. My mother came, crying, holding a picture of my father in her purse.<\/p>\n

Six months later, we signed a lease on a little one-bedroom in Prospect Lefferts Gardens. Our first<\/p>\n

real place together. Before that, we\u2019d been splitting time between his place in Manhattan and my studio in Queens.<\/p>\n

It was small. A fourth-floor walk-up with crooked floors and a kitchen the size of a closet. The sink<\/p>\n

leaked from the day we moved in.<\/p>\n

I loved it anyway. I thought it was the start of something.<\/p>\n

Cole decided we should have a housewarming party.<\/p>\n

Before I tell you about the party, I need to tell you about the leaks.<\/p>\n

They were small. That\u2019s the thing. They were always small.<\/p>\n

There was Cole\u2019s phone. He kept it face-down on the table. Always. When I asked once, he<\/p>\n

laughed and said he just didn\u2019t like seeing notifications during dinner. Which made sense. So I stopped asking.<\/p>\n

There was the way he talked about my work. At parties. With his friends. Tess fixes toilets, he\u2019d say,<\/p>\n

and everybody would laugh, and he\u2019d put his arm around me and say, I\u2019m kidding, she\u2019s amazing, she\u2019s basically a contractor. Basically. Like it wasn\u2019t a real job.<\/p>\n

There was the way he\u2019d ask me not to wear my work clothes when his colleagues came over.<\/p>\n

Could you maybe change first? Just so it doesn\u2019t look like we live in a construction site.<\/p>\n

And there was Jessica.<\/p>\n

Jessica Lindqvist. His ex-girlfriend. They\u2019d dated for three years in his twenties. She was a graphic<\/p>\n

designer. Blond. Tall. Pretty in the way that looks effortless but isn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

He still followed her on every app. Instagram. Facebook. LinkedIn. He liked her posts. He commented on them. Little things. Love this! Looking great, J!<\/p>\n

When I mentioned it once, carefully, he got defensive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re friends,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to block someone just because we used to date. Blocking people is childish, Tess.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t say block her.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou were thinking it,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s fine. I get it. Some people are just more insecure.\u201d<\/p>\n

So I stopped mentioning it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how small leaks work. They\u2019re quiet. You notice them. You say something once. Somebody tells you it\u2019s no big deal. And you put a coffee can under it and get used to emptying it every morning.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d gotten used to a lot of coffee cans.<\/p>\n

Two weeks before the housewarming, I got a call from a property manager in Park Slope. A tenant on the third floor of a brownstone on 6th Avenue had a kitchen sink that was backing up.<\/p>\n

The building\u2019s regular plumber was out on vacation.<\/p>\n

It was a Tuesday afternoon. I drove over in my van.<\/p>\n

The tenant opened the door. A woman in her early thirties. Blond. Tall. Barefoot, in yoga pants and<\/p>\n

an oversized sweater. Pretty in a way that looked effortless.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, thank God,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s been gurgling for three days. I\u2019m Jess.\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t think anything of it. There are a lot of Jesses in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n

I got down under her sink with my flashlight. The P-trap was packed with coffee grounds. Classic. It took me twenty minutes to clear it and reseat the slip nuts.<\/p>\n

While I worked, she leaned against the counter and talked. People always talk to you when you\u2019re<\/p>\n

under their sink. I don\u2019t know why. Something about not being able to see your face. I\u2019ve heard confessions from under sinks that I wouldn\u2019t hear in a church.<\/p>\n

She told me she was a graphic designer. Freelance. She told me she\u2019d just moved into the apartment four months ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cFresh start,\u201d she said. \u201cLong story.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then she said, \u201cActually, my boyfriend\u2019s going to be so annoyed he didn\u2019t fix this himself. He keeps saying he\u2019s handy. He\u2019s not handy.\u201d She laughed. \u201cHe works in marketing. He can\u2019t even change a lightbulb without posting about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I laughed too. From under the sink.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s going through a divorce right now,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s been really hard on him. His wife sounds like a total nightmare. Controlling. Super insecure. He says she won\u2019t even let him have friends.\u201d She<\/p>\n

sighed. \u201cHe\u2019s moving out soon. He\u2019s getting his own place. He\u2019s been crashing at hers until the lease thing gets sorted.\u201d<\/p>\n

I tightened the last slip nut. I ran the water. No leaks.<\/p>\n

I slid out from under the cabinet.<\/p>\n

And I saw the refrigerator.<\/p>\n

There were photos on it. Held up with little magnets shaped like fruit. Most of them were of Jess.<\/p>\n

With friends. At a beach. At a wedding.<\/p>\n

And in the middle, there was one of Jess with a man. On a rooftop. At sunset. His arm around her shoulders. Both of them laughing.<\/p>\n

It was the rooftop bar in Williamsburg. The one where I met him.<\/p>\n

It was Cole.<\/p>\n

Wearing the gray quarter-zip I bought him for his birthday. Three weeks ago.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t say anything.<\/p>\n

I stood in Jessica Lindqvist\u2019s kitchen in my work boots, with my father\u2019s wrench in my hand, and looked at a photo of my husband on her refrigerator.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll set?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll set,\u201d I said. My voice sounded completely normal. I don\u2019t know how.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do I owe you?\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked at her. At her bare feet and her oversized sweater and her face. She was smiling at me. She had no idea. None.<\/p>\n

His wife sounds like a total nightmare.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe building\u2019s covering it,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, great,\u201d she said. \u201cThank you so much. Seriously. You saved my life. I\u2019ve been dumping the dishwater in the bathtub for three days.\u201d<\/p>\n

I packed up my tools. I walked down three flights of stairs. I got into my van.<\/p>\n

I sat in the driver\u2019s seat on 6th Avenue for a long time. With my hands on the steering wheel.<\/p>\n

On the dashboard, faded and curling at the edges, was the newspaper article my father taped<\/p>\n

there seven years ago. Queens Woman Earns Master Plumber License at 24.<\/p>\n

I looked at it. I looked at the photo of my father next to it. Him and me in front of the old van, both of us grinning, both of us covered in grime.<\/p>\n

If you hear a drip, don\u2019t get used to it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d been hearing it for two years.<\/p>\n

I drove home. I didn\u2019t say anything to Cole that night. Or the next night. Or the next.<\/p>\n

I needed to think. I needed to figure out how bad the damage was before I started pulling things apart.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what my father taught me. You don\u2019t rip out a whole wall just because you found one drip.<\/p>\n

First, you find out how far the water\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n

Twelve days later, the night he told me, I was sitting on our kitchen floor.<\/p>\n

I was fixing the sink. The one that had been leaking since the day we moved in. Cole had been<\/p>\n

promising to call the super about it for six months. Finally, I just did it myself.<\/p>\n

My hair was tied back. My jeans were stained from a job in Bushwick. I had my father\u2019s wrench in my hand.<\/p>\n

Then the front door slammed. Hard enough to rattle the picture frames in the hallway.<\/p>\n

When I slid out from under the cabinet, Cole was standing in the kitchen doorway with his arms crossed. Looking down at me like a boss getting ready to discipline an employee.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to talk about Saturday,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Saturday. Our housewarming. Our first real party since moving in together. He\u2019d invited thirty people. His friends. Some coworkers. A few of mine. Sarah. My cousin Danny. He\u2019d made a playlist.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d ordered a cheese board from a fancy place in Carroll Gardens that cost two hundred dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat about it?\u201d I asked. I wiped my hands on a rag.<\/p>\n

He straightened up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI invited someone,\u201d he said. \u201cShe matters to me. I need you to handle it calmly and maturely. If you can\u2019t, then we\u2019re going to have a major problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWho?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

But I already knew.<\/p>\n

\u201cJessica,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

His ex.<\/p>\n

The one he always made excuses for. The one he still followed on every app, because blocking<\/p>\n

people was childish. The one whose kitchen sink I\u2019d fixed twelve days ago. The one with his picture on her refrigerator.<\/p>\n

I set the wrench down on the kitchen floor.<\/p>\n

The metallic clink against the tile seemed much louder than it should have.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou invited your ex-girlfriend,\u201d I said slowly, \u201cto our housewarming party?\u201d<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t hesitate. Not for a second.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re friends. Good friends. If that makes you uncomfortable, then maybe you\u2019re a lot more insecure than I thought.\u201d<\/p>\n

There it was.<\/p>\n

Not a discussion. A warning.<\/p>\n

His wife sounds like a total nightmare. Controlling. Super insecure.<\/p>\n

He\u2019d already told her the story. He\u2019d already told her who I was. And now he was setting it up so I\u2019d prove it. In front of thirty people. At our own party. He wanted me to make a scene. He needed me to. So that afterward, he could say, See? I told you. She\u2019s crazy. She\u2019s insecure. She<\/p>\n

can\u2019t handle me having friends.<\/p>\n

And then he could move out to his own place. And everybody would understand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need you to act like an adult,\u201d Cole said again. \u201cCan you do that?\u201d<\/p>\n

He was bracing for it. I could see it. His shoulders were tight. His jaw was set. He was ready for anger. Tears. A scene.<\/p>\n

He wanted one.<\/p>\n

So I didn\u2019t give it to him.<\/p>\n

Instead, I smiled. Calmly. Steadily.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be extremely mature,\u201d I said. \u201cI promise.\u201d<\/p>\n

He blinked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s it?\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re totally okay with it?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course,\u201d I said. \u201cIf she\u2019s important to you, she\u2019s more than welcome.\u201d<\/p>\n

He studied my face. Searching for sarcasm. For anger. For hurt.<\/p>\n

He found absolutely nothing.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood,\u201d he said finally. He looked relieved. And maybe a little disappointed. \u201cI\u2019m glad you\u2019re not going to make things awkward.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI would never,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

He turned around. He was already pulling his phone out of his pocket. I heard him in the living room a minute later, laughing, typing. Telling somebody about his chill wife.<\/p>\n

I picked up my father\u2019s wrench.<\/p>\n

I finished fixing the sink.<\/p>\n

Then I grabbed my phone.<\/p>\n

Hey Sarah. Is your guest room still free?<\/p>\n

Her reply came through in less than a minute.<\/p>\n

Always. What happened?<\/p>\n

Sarah Kaplan has been my best friend since the third grade at P.S. 69 in Jackson Heights. She\u2019s a<\/p>\n

public defender now. She has a second bedroom in her apartment in Sunnyside that she keeps made up \u201cfor emergencies,\u201d because her sister went through a bad divorce two years ago and slept on her couch for four months.<\/p>\n

She never liked Cole. She never said so. Not out loud. But every time she saw him, her smile got a little thinner.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll explain everything on Saturday, I typed back. I just need somewhere to crash for a while.<\/p>\n

The door is always open, she wrote. Come over any time. I\u2019ll put fresh sheets on.<\/p>\n

Then, a second later:<\/p>\n

Tess. Are you okay?<\/p>\n

I looked at my reflection in the dark kitchen window. My hair tied back. A smear of pipe grease on my cheek. My father\u2019s wrench in my lap.<\/p>\n

I found the leak, I wrote. I\u2019m going to fix it.<\/p>\n

The next day, Cole was practically buzzing with excitement.<\/p>\n

He kept texting me while I was at work. About the appetizers. Should we get the prosciutto or is that too much? About the playlist. Do you think people want jazz or more like indie? About<\/p>\n

decorations. I found these string lights on Amazon, they\u2019re like $40, worth it?<\/p>\n

Not a single word about Jessica.<\/p>\n

In his mind, that issue was settled. I\u2019d agreed. I was being mature. Problem solved.<\/p>\n

On my lunch break, I sat alone in my van in a parking lot in Ridgewood. I ate a turkey sandwich. And I made a list in my head.<\/p>\n

What actually belonged to me.<\/p>\n

My clothes. My tools. My father\u2019s wrench, which never left my side. My laptop. My photos. A shoebox of pictures of my father and me in front of the old van, at job sites, at the Mets game where he caught a foul ball and gave it to the kid next to us.<\/p>\n

My grandmother\u2019s jewelry. A gold cross. A pair of pearl earrings. A ring with a tiny garnet.<\/p>\n

That was it. That was everything I needed.<\/p>\n

The furniture was mostly Cole\u2019s. The couch was his. The bed was his. The dishes were from his<\/p>\n

mother. I\u2019d moved in with two suitcases and a van full of tools.<\/p>\n

After work, I stopped at the bank.<\/p>\n

I sorted out my finances. Quietly. I transferred my savings out of our joint account into a new<\/p>\n

account in my name only. Every dollar I\u2019d put in. Not a penny more. I paid my half of next month\u2019s rent, so nobody could ever say I left him short.<\/p>\n

I bought a duffel bag at a sporting goods store on Myrtle Avenue. I packed it in the back of the van. My clothes. My laptop. My grandmother\u2019s jewelry, wrapped in a handkerchief. The shoebox of photos.<\/p>\n

I left the duffel bag in the van. Under a tarp. Next to my toolboxes.<\/p>\n

Then I went home.<\/p>\n

Cole was knee-deep in party decorations when I walked in.<\/p>\n

The living room was covered in boxes. String lights. Paper lanterns. A banner that said HOME SWEET HOME in gold letters. A giant bag of balloons.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere you are,\u201d he said. \u201cCan you help me hang these up? I can\u2019t reach the top of the window.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSure,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m five-foot-four. He\u2019s six-foot-one. I didn\u2019t point that out. I got the step stool from the kitchen.<\/p>\n

We decorated together. For two hours. He talked the whole time. About our future. About this big new chapter. About how proud he was of us. How much he loved the apartment. How he couldn\u2019t wait for everyone to see it.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you think this is special?\u201d he asked. He was standing on the step stool, hanging the gold HOME SWEET HOME banner over the window. \u201cOur first real party in our first real place?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, definitely,\u201d I said. I handed him a thumbtack. \u201cA real turning point.\u201d<\/p>\n

He smiled down at me.<\/p>\n

That night, in bed, he checked his phone. He smirked. He turned the screen so I could see it.<\/p>\n

A text. From Jessica.<\/p>\n

Can\u2019t wait for Saturday! Bringing a nice bottle of wine to celebrate the new place!!<\/p>\n

The new place.<\/p>\n

Not your new place. Not your and Tess\u2019s new place.<\/p>\n

The new place. His. In her mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe just confirmed,\u201d Cole said. \u201cShe\u2019s bringing wine.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s nice,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

He looked at me closely. In the light from his phone.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re being very calm about this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou asked me to be mature,\u201d I said. \u201cThat\u2019s exactly what I\u2019m doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

He put his phone down. Face-down. On the nightstand. Like always.<\/p>\n

He fell asleep in about five minutes.<\/p>\n

I lay awake in the dark, listening to him breathe. Listening to the radiator clank.<\/p>\n

And under it, very faintly, from the kitchen, a sound I\u2019d been hearing for two years and pretending I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Plip.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d fixed the sink that night. I knew it wasn\u2019t the sink.<\/p>\n

The day of the housewarming finally arrived.<\/p>\n

By four o\u2019clock, the apartment was packed. Thirty people in a one-bedroom. People standing in<\/p>\n

the hallway. People sitting on the windowsill. People balanced on the arms of the couch.<\/p>\n

Music. Laughter. Clinking glasses. Everybody talking over each other. The two-hundred-dollar cheese board was demolished in twenty minutes.<\/p>\n

Cole was in his element. Working the room. Giving tours. And this is the bedroom. And this is the closet, which, I know, it\u2019s tiny. And this is the kitchen. Tess fixed the sink herself, she\u2019s amazing, she\u2019s basically a contractor.<\/p>\n

Basically.<\/p>\n

I stayed by the kitchen counter. I poured drinks. I smiled. I said thank you when people complimented the apartment.<\/p>\n

I overheard some of Cole\u2019s coworkers whispering by the bathroom door.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs it true his ex is coming?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what he said. Jessica.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSeriously? To the housewarming? With his wife here?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know. Bold.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of them, a woman named Priya who worked with Cole, came over to me at the counter. She<\/p>\n

had a glass of wine and a careful expression.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, Tess,\u201d she said. \u201cSo. Is it weird? About Jessica?\u201d<\/p>\n

I shrugged.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just keeping the peace,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

Priya looked at me for a long moment. Then she looked at Cole across the room, laughing with a<\/p>\n

group of guys by the window.<\/p>\n

\u201cOkay,\u201d she said slowly. \u201cWell. You\u2019re a better woman than me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarah got there at four-thirty. With my cousin Danny.<\/p>\n

She hugged me. She held on a little longer than usual. When she pulled back, she looked at my face.<\/p>\n

Then she leaned in close.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomething feels completely off,\u201d she said quietly. \u201cThis doesn\u2019t even feel like your party.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause it isn\u2019t,\u201d I said. \u201cStay close. And keep your phone ready.\u201d<\/p>\n

She looked at me for a long moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour duffel bag\u2019s in the van,\u201d she said. It wasn\u2019t a question.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder the tarp.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarah nodded. She picked up a glass of wine. She positioned herself near the front door. Danny<\/p>\n

stood next to her. Danny\u2019s six-foot-three and works construction. He didn\u2019t know what was going on. He didn\u2019t ask. He just stood there with his arms crossed, like somebody\u2019s bodyguard.<\/p>\n

Around five o\u2019clock, the mood shifted.<\/p>\n

Cole kept checking his phone. Adjusting his collar. Fixing his hair in the reflection of the window. Glancing toward the front door.<\/p>\n

I knew that look. I\u2019d seen it a hundred times. Under sinks. On the faces of tenants waiting for the<\/p>\n

super to come and tell them the damage wasn\u2019t as bad as it looked.<\/p>\n

Then the doorbell rang.<\/p>\n

The entire room went quiet. Dead quiet. Somebody actually turned the music down.<\/p>\n

Thirty people turned to look at the door.<\/p>\n

Cole started toward it.<\/p>\n

I stepped out in front of him. Quickly. Before he could get there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll get it,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

He stopped. He looked at me. For one second, something flickered across his face. Uncertainty.<\/p>\n

\u201cTess\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou asked me to welcome her,\u201d I said. \u201cSo let me welcome her.\u201d<\/p>\n

He hesitated. Then he stepped back.<\/p>\n

I walked to the front door.<\/p>\n

Behind me stood thirty guests. Holding their drinks. Watching. Sarah by the coat rack with her phone in her hand. Danny next to her. Cole in the middle of the living room under the gold HOME SWEET HOME banner I\u2019d handed him the thumbtacks for.<\/p>\n

On the other side of that door stood the woman he\u2019d demanded I welcome.<\/p>\n

I put my hand on the doorknob.<\/p>\n

I pulled the door open.<\/p>\n

Jessica Lindqvist was standing in the hallway.<\/p>\n

She was wearing a pale green dress and white sneakers. Her blond hair was down. She was holding a bottle of wine with a red bow tied around the neck. She was smiling. A big, bright,<\/p>\n

excited smile.<\/p>\n

The smile of a woman arriving at her boyfriend\u2019s new place.<\/p>\n

Then she saw me.<\/p>\n

The smile froze.<\/p>\n

She looked at my face. My hair. My hands. My father\u2019s wrench, which I\u2019d tucked into the back pocket of my jeans that morning, the way I always did. The red handle sticking out.<\/p>\n

I watched her recognize me. I watched it happen in about two seconds.<\/p>\n

The plumber. Twelve days ago. Under her sink. Three flights up on 6th Avenue. The one who said the building was covering it.<\/p>\n

Her face went white.<\/p>\n

And the second I saw her, I knew exactly what I was going to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi, Jessica,\u201d I said. \u201cHow\u2019s that P-trap holding up?\u201d<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t say anything. She couldn\u2019t. She was staring at me.<\/p>\n

Behind me, I heard Cole take a step forward.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou two know each other?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t turn around. I kept looking at Jessica.<\/p>\n

\u201cI fixed her kitchen sink,\u201d I said. \u201cTwo weeks ago. On 6th Avenue. Third floor. Coffee grounds in the trap.\u201d I looked at her. \u201cYou were dumping your dishwater in the bathtub for three days.<\/p>\n

Remember?\u201d<\/p>\n

Jessica\u2019s hand was shaking. The wine bottle with the red bow trembled.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou,\u201d she said. \u201cYou\u2019re\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m Tess,\u201d I said. \u201cCole\u2019s wife.\u201d<\/p>\n

I could feel the room behind me. Thirty people. Not one of them breathing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t know,\u201d Jessica whispered. \u201cAt my apartment. I didn\u2019t know who you were.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know you didn\u2019t,\u201d I said. \u201cI didn\u2019t either. Not until I saw your refrigerator.\u201d<\/p>\n

I watched it hit her. The photo. Her and Cole on the rooftop at sunset. In the gray quarter-zip.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was wearing the sweater I bought him for his birthday,\u201d I said quietly. \u201cIn that picture. I gave it<\/p>\n

to him three weeks before I fixed your sink.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jessica closed her eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me you were separated,\u201d she said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. But in that silent<\/p>\n

room, everybody heard it. \u201cHe told me you were getting divorced. He said you were controlling. That you wouldn\u2019t let him have friends. That you were insecure and difficult and he was just staying until the lease thing was sorted out.\u201d She opened her eyes. They were wet. \u201cHe told me this party<\/p>\n

was a housewarming for his new place. He said you\u2019d be moving out soon. He said you were being really mature about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I nodded slowly.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told me you were just a friend,\u201d I said. \u201cA good friend. He said if I couldn\u2019t handle you being here, I was insecure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jessica looked past me. Into the apartment. At Cole.<\/p>\n

I turned around.<\/p>\n

Cole was standing in the middle of the living room. Under the gold HOME SWEET HOME banner. His face had gone gray. His mouth was open. He was holding a wine glass, and his hand was<\/p>\n

shaking so badly that wine was spilling over the rim onto the floor.<\/p>\n

Thirty people were looking at him.<\/p>\n

Priya, his coworker, had her hand over her mouth.<\/p>\n

My cousin Danny had uncrossed his arms.<\/p>\n

Sarah was holding up her phone. Recording. Just like I\u2019d asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cTess,\u201d Cole said. His voice cracked. \u201cTess, I can explain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t need to,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not what it sounds like,\u201d he said. \u201cJess, it\u2019s not\u2014she\u2019s twisting it. She\u2019s doing exactly what I said she\u2019d do, she\u2019s making a scene\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI\u2019m not making a scene, Cole,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

I said it calmly. Steadily. The way my father used to talk to tenants standing in two inches of water at three in the morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m being mature,\u201d I said. \u201cYou asked me to be. Remember? On the kitchen floor. You said, I need you to handle it calmly and maturely. If you can\u2019t, we\u2019re going to have a major problem.\u201d I looked at him. \u201cSo here I am. Handling it calmly and maturely.\u201d<\/p>\n

He didn\u2019t say anything.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou wanted a scene,\u201d I said. \u201cDidn\u2019t you? You wanted me to scream at her when she walked in. In front of all your friends. You wanted me to cry and throw things and prove that I\u2019m exactly what<\/p>\n

you told her I was. So that when you moved out to your own place, everybody would understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exactly what you wanted,\u201d I said. \u201cI watched you set it up. For twelve days. I watched you hang the banner.\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked up at the gold letters over his head. HOME SWEET HOME.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I decided to do something more mature than screaming,\u201d I said. \u201cI decided to tell the truth. Calmly. At the door. To the only other person here you\u2019ve been lying to.\u201d<\/p>\n

I reached into my pocket. I took out my keys.<\/p>\n

I took the apartment key off the ring. I walked over to the little table by the door, the one where Cole always dropped his phone face-down when he came home.<\/p>\n

I put the key on it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI paid my half of next month\u2019s rent,\u201d I said. \u201cThis morning. It\u2019s in your account. So nobody can say I left you short.\u201d I looked at him. \u201cThe couch is yours. The bed is yours. The dishes are your mother\u2019s. I\u2019m taking what I brought.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTess\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI already took it,\u201d I said. \u201cIt\u2019s in the van. Under a tarp. I packed it on Thursday. While you were texting me about prosciutto.\u201d<\/p>\n

He stared at me.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere are you going?\u201d he asked. His voice was small.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomewhere that doesn\u2019t leak,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

I turned back to the door.<\/p>\n

Jessica was still standing in the hallway. Still holding the wine bottle with the red bow. Tears running down her face. She looked at me like she didn\u2019t know what I was going to do. Like she was<\/p>\n

waiting for me to finally scream.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m sorry,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m so sorry. I swear to God, I didn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know you didn\u2019t,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy didn\u2019t you say something?\u201d she asked. \u201cAt my apartment. When you saw the picture. You could have told me right then.\u201d<\/p>\n

I thought about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I needed to know how far the water had gone,\u201d I said. \u201cBefore I started pulling things apart.\u201d<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t understand. That was okay.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe told you I was a nightmare,\u201d I said. \u201cHe told me you were just a friend. He was going to let us find out about each other at a party. In front of thirty people. With a bottle of wine.\u201d I looked at<\/p>\n

the bottle in her hands. At the red bow. \u201cI figured one of us deserved to hear the truth first. Before the scene he was planning. So I wanted it to be you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jessica\u2019s face crumpled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy would you do that?\u201d she whispered. \u201cFor me?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause nobody did it for me,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

I took my jacket off the hook by the door. I put it on. I picked up my father\u2019s wrench out of my<\/p>\n

back pocket and looked at it for a second. The red handle. Worn pale.<\/p>\n

Then I looked back into the apartment. At thirty silent people holding drinks. At the demolished cheese board. At the string lights and the paper lanterns. At my husband under a banner I\u2019d<\/p>\n

helped him hang.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanks for coming, everybody,\u201d I said. \u201cHelp yourselves to more wine. Jessica brought a nice bottle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then I walked out the door.<\/p>\n

Sarah followed me. Then Danny. Then, after a second, Priya. And two more of Cole\u2019s coworkers. And my old friend from the union hall, Mike. And the couple from downstairs.<\/p>\n

Seven people walked out of that party behind me.<\/p>\n

On the landing, I stopped. I turned around.<\/p>\n

Jessica was still standing in the hallway outside the apartment door. Alone. With the wine bottle.<\/p>\n

Cole was in the doorway now, saying her name. Reaching for her arm.<\/p>\n

She pulled away from him.<\/p>\n

She looked at me on the landing.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan I\u2014\u201d she said. She stopped. \u201cIs it okay if I walk down with you?\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked at her for a long moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cSure,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

She put the wine bottle down on the floor in front of Cole\u2019s door. Right on the welcome mat. With the red bow still on it.<\/p>\n

Then she walked down four flights of stairs with us. Me and Sarah and Danny and Priya and Jessica<\/p>\n

Lindqvist. Nobody said anything. Our footsteps echoed in the stairwell.<\/p>\n

At the bottom, out on the sidewalk, in the warm May evening, Jessica stopped.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to go home,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd throw up. And then probably cry for a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat sounds about right,\u201d Sarah said.<\/p>\n

Jessica looked at me.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour father\u2019s wrench,\u201d she said. \u201cYou had it in your pocket. At my apartment too. I noticed it. The<\/p>\n

red handle.\u201d She swallowed. \u201cWhen you were fixing my sink, you told me it was your dad\u2019s. You said he taught you everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe did,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did he teach you?\u201d she asked. \u201cAbout this kind of thing?\u201d<\/p>\n

I thought about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you hear a drip,\u201d I said, \u201cdon\u2019t get used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She looked at me for a long time. Then she nodded slowly. Like she was going to remember it.<\/p>\n

She walked away up the sidewalk toward the subway.<\/p>\n

I slept in Sarah\u2019s guest room that night. Fresh sheets. A glass of water on the nightstand. A box<\/p>\n

of tissues she\u2019d put there without saying anything.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t cry. Not that night.<\/p>\n

I lay in the dark and listened to the radiator.<\/p>\n

It didn\u2019t clank. Sarah\u2019s building has new radiators. Quiet ones.<\/p>\n

And there was no drip. Anywhere.<\/p>\n

I fell asleep in about five minutes. For the first time in months.<\/p>\n

Cole called me forty-one times the next day.<\/p>\n

He texted too. The texts changed every few hours.<\/p>\n

At first, they were angry. How could you humiliate me like that? In front of everyone? In front of<\/p>\n

my COWORKERS?<\/p>\n

Then they were sad. I\u2019m sorry. I\u2019m so sorry. I don\u2019t know what I was thinking. Please come home.<\/p>\n

Then they were angry again. You set me up. You planned this. You knew for two weeks and you<\/p>\n

said NOTHING. That\u2019s manipulative, Tess. That\u2019s sick.<\/p>\n

Then, late that night: Jessica won\u2019t answer my calls either. Neither will Priya. Mark from work said he\u2019s not sure we should be friends anymore. Are you happy now?<\/p>\n

I read that one twice.<\/p>\n

Then I texted back. Just once.<\/p>\n

You asked me to be mature, Cole. I was.<\/p>\n

Then I blocked his number.<\/p>\n

It turns out blocking people isn\u2019t childish. Sometimes it\u2019s just plumbing. You shut off the valve so the water stops coming.<\/p>\n

Sarah handled the divorce. She\u2019s a public defender, not a divorce lawyer, but she knew somebody who was. A woman named Rosa Delgado in Jackson Heights who\u2019d gone to high school with my father and charged me about a third of what she should have.<\/p>\n

It was simple. We\u2019d only been married eighteen months. No kids. No house. The lease was in both our names. Cole kept the apartment. And the couch. And the bed. And his mother\u2019s dishes. And the gold HOME SWEET HOME banner, I assume.<\/p>\n

I kept my van. My tools. My father\u2019s wrench. My grandmother\u2019s jewelry. A shoebox of photos.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t want anything else.<\/p>\n

Rosa asked me, at the final signing, if I was sure. If I wanted to go after anything. Alimony. Half of<\/p>\n

whatever.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo,\u201d I said. \u201cI want what I brought. That\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rosa looked at me over her reading glasses for a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour father would be proud of you,\u201d she said. \u201cHe always said you were the one who\u2019d never put up with a slow leak.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jessica sent me a message on Instagram about a month later.<\/p>\n

I almost didn\u2019t open it.<\/p>\n

Hi Tess. I don\u2019t know if you want to hear from me. I\u2019ll understand if you don\u2019t. But I wanted to say thank you. For the door. For telling me first. I\u2019ve been thinking about it every day.<\/p>\n

I found out after. From Priya. He\u2019d been telling a lot of people a lot of things. About both of us. He told Priya I was \u201cclingy\u201d and \u201ccouldn\u2019t let go.\u201d He told me you were \u201ca nightmare.\u201d He told his coworkers we were both crazy. He was going to make us both the villain in his story so he\u2019d look<\/p>\n

like the guy who got trapped between two difficult women.<\/p>\n

I almost let him. If you\u2019d screamed at me that day, I would\u2019ve believed him. I would\u2019ve thought, wow, he was right about her. And I\u2019d have stayed with him.<\/p>\n

\n

You didn\u2019t scream. You told me the truth. Calmly. At the door. Before anybody else.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever had a stranger do something that kind for me.<\/p>\n

Anyway. My sink is still fine. No leaks. \u2014 J<\/p>\n

I sat in my van in a parking lot in Woodside and read it three times.<\/p>\n

Then I wrote back.<\/p>\n

Glad the sink\u2019s holding up. If it ever starts gurgling again, call me. I\u2019ll come back.<\/p>\n

She sent back a thumbs-up and a heart.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all. We\u2019re not friends, exactly. But she sends me a message every few months. A picture of a sink. A picture of a pipe. One time a picture of a plumber she saw on the subway, with a caption<\/p>\n

that said Not as good as you.<\/p>\n

I always write back.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m thirty-two now.<\/p>\n

I live in a little apartment in Jackson Heights, four blocks from where I grew up. Third floor. A walk-up. Crooked floors. A kitchen the size of a closet.<\/p>\n

The sink doesn\u2019t leak. I made sure of that the first day. I got down on my back on the linoleum<\/p>\n

with a flashlight in my teeth and checked every joint. Every seal. Every slip nut. Every inch of pipe.<\/p>\n

Then I took the flashlight out of my mouth and said, out loud, to nobody: \u201cGood work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreno & Daughter Plumbing has three vans now. I hired two guys last year. Well, a guy and a<\/p>\n

girl. Lucia, who\u2019s twenty-two and came to me straight out of trade school with her own pipe wrench and a chip on her shoulder. She reminds me of me.<\/p>\n

On her first day, I took her to a job in a building on 82nd Street. The same building where my<\/p>\n

father died. A tenant on the second floor had a slow drip under her kitchen sink. She\u2019d been emptying a coffee can every morning for a year.<\/p>\n

I lay down on the linoleum next to Lucia with a flashlight in my teeth. I didn\u2019t touch anything. I just<\/p>\n

pointed.<\/p>\n

\u201cSee that?\u201d I said. \u201cThat little drip?\u201d<\/p>\n

Lucia saw it.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow look at the wood under it,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

She pressed her thumb into it. It gave, like wet bread.<\/p>\n

I handed her my father\u2019s wrench. The twelve-inch Ridgid with the red handle worn pale where his<\/p>\n

hand used to grip it, and where mine does now.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of the damage in a house,\u201d I told her, \u201cdoesn\u2019t come from the big disasters. Those, everybody notices. Everybody comes running.\u201d I tapped the dark wood. \u201cIt comes from the little<\/p>\n

leaks nobody bothers to fix. Because they\u2019re quiet. Because you get used to them. Because somebody tells you it\u2019s no big deal, and emptying a coffee can every morning feels easier than crawling under a sink.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lucia looked at me.<\/p>\n

\u201cAre we still talking about plumbing?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n

I laughed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re always talking about plumbing,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n

She fixed it. It took her thirty-five minutes. She scraped her knuckles. I didn\u2019t help once.<\/p>\n

When the joint was dry, I shined the flashlight on it for a long time.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood work,\u201d I said. \u201cNow you know the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n

I took the flashlight out of my mouth.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you hear a drip,\u201d I said, \u201cdon\u2019t get used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

She nodded slowly. Like she was going to remember it.<\/p>\n

People ask me sometimes how I stayed so calm. That day. At the door. With thirty people<\/p>\n

watching and my husband\u2019s girlfriend standing in the hallway holding a bottle of wine with a red bow on it.<\/p>\n

They expect me to say I was angry. That I was secretly furious. That I wanted revenge.<\/p>\n

I tell them the truth.<\/p>\n

I wasn\u2019t angry anymore. I\u2019d been angry for twelve days. Sitting in my van. Lying awake listening to the radiator. Hanging string lights while he talked about our future.<\/p>\n

By Saturday, I was just done.<\/p>\n

He wanted a scene. He\u2019d built the whole party around one. He needed me to be the crazy, insecure, jealous wife he\u2019d already told everybody I was.<\/p>\n

The most mature thing I could do was refuse to play that part.<\/p>\n

So I opened the door. And I told the truth. Calmly. Once. To the one person in the room who\u2019d been lied to as badly as I had.<\/p>\n

And then I left.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not revenge. My father would\u2019ve called it something else.<\/p>\n

He would\u2019ve called it fixing a leak.<\/p>\n

You find the drip. You don\u2019t get used to it. You shut off the water. You do the work, even if it scrapes your knuckles.<\/p>\n

And then you walk away from the sink, and you don\u2019t look back, because the job is done.<\/p>\n

Last month, I got a text from an unknown number. A Brooklyn area code.<\/p>\n

Hi, is this Moreno & Daughter? I got your number from a friend. Jessica Lindqvist? She said you\u2019re the best. I\u2019ve got a kitchen sink that\u2019s been dripping for months. My boyfriend keeps<\/p>\n

saying he\u2019ll fix it. He never does. Can you come take a look?<\/p>\n

I looked at that text for a long time.<\/p>\n

Then I wrote back.<\/p>\n

Sure. What\u2019s the address?<\/p>\n

She sent it. A building in Park Slope. Four floors up.<\/p>\n

Thank you so much, she wrote. It\u2019s probably no big deal. Just a little drip. I\u2019ve been putting a<\/p>\n

coffee can under it.<\/p>\n

I put my phone down on the dashboard. Next to the faded newspaper article. Next to the picture of my father and me in front of the old van, both of us grinning, both of us covered in grime.<\/p>\n

I picked up his wrench.<\/p>\n

Then I started the van.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always a big deal,\u201d I said out loud, to nobody. \u201cIt\u2019s always a big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

And I drove to Park Slope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first pipe I ever fixed was under my grandmother\u2019s kitchen sink in Queens. I was twelve years old. My father lay on his back<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-celebrity-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15913,"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15911\/revisions\/15913"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/humorssite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}