A Day Of Rest... ?

One of the things I love about Sunday is that we really do try to make it a day of rest. And with all the craziness that our family generates and endures from Monday through Saturday, it's really nice to have that one day when the craziness subsides, and we all get to take a moment to breathe.

And MOST days, it works.

...at least in theory...

Remember how last Sunday morning we had 17 people sleeping at our house? (Sorry Andy, by my math, 7 + 4 + 5 + 1 = 17!) Well, leading up to that company-intensive morning, the sink in our upstairs (main!) bathroom had become completely plugged. My dilemma wasn't "how can I fix the sink?" but rather "WHEN can I fix the sink?" All of my best intentions were to have its drain draining clearly before the first visitors arrived.

Instead, Sunday morning came before I'd even been into that bathroom to look at it.

I also had neglected to tell our many houseguests that the sink had progressed from "slow" to "ain't gonna happen."

My do-it-NOW moment came when we told one of the kids to go brush their teeth, and the response was "there's a ton of black, disgusting stuff in the sink!"

Uh-oh.

Someone (I think it was my nephew Shawn, who is VERY into personal hygiene) had shaved over the bathroom sink, and since the water didn't go down, the sink was full of the little dust like whisker particles that come from shaving, as well as bits of foamy shaving cream.

No two ways to put it - it looked N-A-S-T-Y!!

Since our church doesn't start until 1, I had time to just once-and-for-all, fix the stupid sink.

During my last miserable plugged-drain experience, I had bought a supercharged plunger that uses a Co2 cartridge to blast the clog away. It has proven to be one of my favorite home maintenance items EVER, and I just happened to have one cartridge left! I was POSITIVE that SuperPlunger (SP) would be able to clear our little problem.

Just one additional obstacle remained... The stopper in the sink is the kind that hooks to a lever on the faucet, and I was afraid that the blast from SP would push the stopper down and prevent the force from getting to the clog.

So, being resourceful, I asked my nephew Jeff (one of the 17) to help out by holding down the lever and forcing the stopper to stay up.

We both got into position, and I checked and re-checked that I had a good tight seal at the base of SP... Check!

Jeff grinned as I counted down from 3 to 1, and pushed down to activate the charge.

MAJOR TACTICAL ERROR!!!

Oops.

Our bathroom sink, like most bathroom sinks, has an overflow protection vent near the top.

I had completely forgotten about that vent. If I had not completely forgotten it, I would have thought to PLUG IT.

Since I didn't plug that vent, the full blast from SP went down the drain, hit the clog, then said "Hey wait - there's a much easier route up there!" and erupted like a sludge volcano (sludgecano?) all over the sink...



all over the bathroom (splish splash, indeed!),



and all over Jeff and me.



So what happened next?

Well, the toothbrush you see in the first sink picture, as well as others that had the misfortune to be in the blast zone, were thrown away.

Jeff and I took a bucket of hot water and Mr. Clean and cleaned up the bathroom.

Jeff and I also laughed at each other, as not just our shirts, but our faces were splattered with the sludge of a million clogs.

Oh, and the sink was still 100%, completely plugged.

The bathroom, however, LOOKED like it was ready for use again - and other than the sink, it was.



Yesterday, I finally had time to pull out my plumbing snake and attack the drain for real. There was so much long, stringy, sludgy hair that came out... I nearly lost my lunch! But I was victorious, and finally, only one week later, that sink is open and ready for business.

...as long as the business doesn't involve brushing long hair over (and into) the sink. I don't think that should ever be allowed again!!