Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Small Pleasures

Today, the toilet got stopped up. This might distress most people, but I was secretly pleased because at-home plumbing is one of my particular interests, and as we know from my experience with bedbugs, I'm not nearly as revolted by things as I ought to be. Having grown up in a house with, to put it kindly, indifferent plumbing, we all became adept in the ways of jerry-rigging, rube goldbberg mechanisms, and the anatomy of a toilet. "I got this," I told Slim confidently. And, sure enough, an hour later, having gone to work with a coat hanger and a kettle of boiling water and a number of other things, I had the immense satisfaction of seeing the water rush from the bowl like souls fleeing devils' pitchforks in some Medieval judgment day fresco.

Hip hip hurrah!

4 comments:

Shelly said...

I live in New Orleans- which is, among other things, a city of indifferent plumbing. I've found that a liberal squirt of dish soap and a wait of about 15 minutes unclogs my toilet every time it backs up.

Sadie Stein Blog said...

Thank you! What I read is not to use dish soap if one lives in an apartment, which seems dubious...why? Cartoonish rivers of soap suds cascading down the stairs or through the ceilings?

Lindsay Ross said...

I feel precisely the same way about moving furniture that's far too big and too heavy for me, and it is likewise a hereditary trait.

Shelly said...

Interesting...I don't know. I've always lived in old large houses that were divided up into 2 to 4 apartments (standard rental housing in uptown New Orleans) and I've never had a problem. But maybe the advice refers to larger buildings? The soap does foam up amusingly when you flush the toilet.