Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Stopped Up

I have a clogged drain.

No, that is not a metaphor for some sort of female anatomy distress, I am serious. I have a clogged drain. In our master bath shower.

I am mechanically inclined and if I had really thought about it out of high school, I probably should have pursued a career that had me using my hands to fix stuff.

Just not clogged drains.

Because while being adept with a screw driver has a certain sexy appeal, having a well developed visual gag reflex is a bit of a problem when it comes to pulling chunks of hair, soap and goopy, sticky, brown ick out of a 2" pipe.

I had on a yellow rubber glove and tried to reach in and grasp the clog but it was lodged too far down.

"I need tongs"

Dallas looked at me, raised his eyebrows and said, "Tongs?"

"Yes. Tongs."

He is quite careful not to mess with me when I'm hormonally imbalanced and I could see him sniffing the air to see if he could pick up the scent of crazy so instead of sending him into the kitchen to forage for a utensil that we would never be able to use again (and risk hearing him mutter under his breath which could have sent me over the edge), I asked him to pass me the cuticle scissors.

While not nearly as effective as tongs would have been, I was able to use the very tip of the scissors to catch the tail end of the clog. I pulled. I dragged and like the clown who tugs foot after foot of handkerchief out of his mouth, this clot went on forever. Out came a giant chunk of something that resembled a rotting oyster. I gagged and then dry heaved.

Dallas thought it was a beauty, like I had been out on the ocean and hooked a big one on my line. "That ought to fix it," he said.

Except it didn't. I took my shower and still found water pooling at my ankles. Since I had just caught a glimpse of what lurked in the drain, I gagged again at the thought of standing in that goop.

Home ownership is dirty business.

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2 comments:

Helen said...

What is it about men that the sight of a bunch of hair, soap, toothpaste clog pulled out of a pipe makes them go showing it off and bragging about it?

I'm with you. Yuck! Except I'm so much on the yuck department that I don't pull them out. And I don't want to see them when they are out.

That's what the plumber (or the sig'ot) is for.

You the woman! And here's your mantra for use while showering: There's nothing in the drain, there's nothing in the drain.

Holly said...

If this subject ever comes up again (and it will, because you will have a teenage daughter sooner than you think - certainly sooner than you want to) - there is a nifty little tool I just purchased at Wal-Mart only a few weeks ago in the hardware/plumbing isle - it's called 'Zip-It', cost less than $3, and is quite handy for pulling all sorts of gunk out of drains. So my husband said. 'Cause I just handed the thing to him, said "here" and walked out of the room. I don't want to see that yucky stuff either. Animal afterbirth, blood and placenta up to my elbows I can handle - other yucky stuff - not so much.