AQUINNAH, Mass.

THERE ARE MANY WAYS to “get high” on Martha’s Vineyard, some of them perfectly legal. I know all of them because I have been sojourning here since the days of my ill-spent youth in the 1960s. Today I am a semi-respectable taxpayer, owning half of a modest cottage, or “camp” in local parlance, in the town formerly known as Gay Head (they changed it to Aquinnah a decade ago, and I’m still learning to spell it).

Up island, as our Vineyard “hood” is known, there are sunsets to die for, BYOB restaurants oozing ambiance, fresh fish to buy direct from crusty anglers, and minor celebrities milling about hoping to be recognized. Before my left knee gave out, I attained my annual runner’s high at the Chilmark Road Race, a hybrid event that is two parts soirée, one part athletic tiff.

But I can’t think of a single Vineyard “rush” that compares with the one I experienced this very August, thanks to a local plumber. A week later I’m still decidedly elevated. To appreciate my euphoria, you have to grasp one of the island’s legendary Catch 22s. If you don’t have a plumber, you can’t get a plumber. And if you have a plumber, try getting him to show up when he’s installing 12 bathrooms in the latest 10,000-square-foot monstrosity being built smack dab on the oceanfront for some dot.com nitwit.

How the primordial island plumber and the antediluvian Vineyard homeowner first got together is a conundrum on par with the “chicken or the egg” controversy.

We had a plumber, but he has waxed elusive. His phone rings and rings. So I screwed up my courage and began cold-calling tradesman willy-nilly. My hopes were not high, but the basement was moist. My message (no self-respecting Vineyard plumber picks up a ringing phone) was shaky, to say the least:

“Hi, this is David — actually, you can call me Dave. We’ve never met, but I’m so looking forward to making your acquaintance, I truly am. My partner and I — he’s my business partner and friend, but that’s all, we both have children . . . and wives — we’re up here in Aquinnah, or Gay Head if you prefer, not that there’s anything wrong with either name. I know, I know, way up island, end of the Earth, so to speak. See, we have this pinhole leak . . . actually it’s the mother of all pinhole leaks, hissing like a snake you just tripped over . . . and we were sort of wondering . . .”

I left at least a dozen such groveling appeals. I think it’s safe to conclude that if all of the recipients had replayed my messages at the exact same moment, the sound of their convulsive horselaughs would have caused a Homeland Security alert in New Bedford.

I uncorked a velvety merlot and put the whole business out of my mind, the way you clutch a fist full of raffle tickets but never expect to hear your number called. Chris called back within minutes. My initial thought was this has got to be a threadbare hoax, or some perverse joke. But no one knew I was calling plumbers. Next Chris said that he could come by in the morning. Now I was really suspicious. I began to grill him. You must be new around here. Are you coming from off-island? What’s this going to cost me?

Well, he came, he plumbed and he charged us an eminently reasonable fee. For the sake of his professional standing in the island’s wrench-wielding, nut-tightening fraternity, I won’t mention the amount or his last name. So far, none of his colleagues have returned my calls. But the basement is dry as a bone, and I’m higher than our widow’s walk.

David Holahan, an occasional contributor, is a Connecticut-based freelance writer who “summers” (well, for two weeks, actually) on Martha’s Vineyard.