It’s NYE 2021. What a year. So much has happened. Someday I might write about it all.
I’ve not been writing for a number of months. It’s been difficult to get up the motivation to do it; I sometimes feel as though my life is no different from anyone else’s, why bother? But every now and again, something happens that is at least comical in the retelling.
I’ve learned a lot recently – like what you should not attempt to do on your own, and when items go inexplicably missing, they might have been accidentally dropped down a drain. Especially if you have young children.
Two weeks ago, the upstairs bathroom sink was clogged again, slow draining like it has for the last decade. In my infinite wisdom and unending belief in my ability to do anything I set my mind to, I went to the basement and retrieved the snake, with the intent to remove the clog once and for all. That didn’t go as planned. I got some gunk out but succeeded in making the clog worse. Well, undeterred, I decided to remove the j-bend and clear out what surely was something stubborn. Wisely, I placed old, ratty towels beneath the sink under the pipe. I get back there and the connection at the j-bend was not moving. What I did not know or expect was that the connection to the wall was loose – and when that came off, it spewed the water in the sink and about a year’s worth of black sludge onto the towels, the wall, my hands….. I am not a plumber. It was something to see (and smell, yuck) – the wall was splattered with black sludge, the towel I had placed on the floor was soaked. I had to use a scotch-brite scrubbie on my hands where I had gotten covered in goo. I finally decided that rubber gloves might make sense, especially because it was not yet Christmas and I had just gotten a pretty sparkly manicure. Which was now covered in whatever had been fermenting in that pipe.
I was able to extract a block of sludge that contained a wooden bead and a plastic toothbrush cover. And lots of hair mixed in with that black, smelly sludge. To make sure I’d gotten everything, I felt inside the pipe in the wall. Much to my chagrin, I could feel the tippy-top of another toothbrush cover (they had disappeared just over ten years ago – coincidence? I think not) but I could not grab it. It was suspended in a glob of goo but any further jostling could potentially create a bigger issue IN THE WALL. I tried grabbing it with tweezers. I tried a crochet hook. No luck. Finally, I decided that the job was too big for me. I called the plumber’s emergency line (it was Sunday.)
When the plumber called back, he was skeptical. He told me to prepare for the worst – they might have to open up the wall. Oh, and it may be better to hold off on having them come because weekends cost double. So I instructed everyone that they needed to brush their teeth in the shower until the sink was fixed.
Of course, they showed up the next afternoon just as I was about to go on a Zoom call with my boss. Awesome timing. Of course I was distracted, so that was no good. By the time I got off my call an hour later, the plumber was standing triumphant with both taps running full blast and water going easily down the sink drain. They did not extract the other piece of plastic – that couldn’t happen easily, it was too far in and if they tried to push it out of place, he was afraid that he would have really caused a problem. But they successfully removed the glob of gunk and water was moving freely now, which was really all that was necessary.
Hallelujah! That pesky toothbrush cover will remain in the pipe in the wall until we actually have to remove it (which I hope will be never.)
Chalk it up to one more crazy thing happening in 2021.
2022 promises to be another doozy, if this last month is anything to go by. Buckle up, everybody. It’s going to be a wild ride!
Happy New Year, everybody! Here’s to all sorts of new adventures!