All Sorts of Water

It’s our fourth straight day of rain here in the greater LA area which is an amazing thing. It’s so cold at our house that I need to turn on the heater, but given last weeks debacle with the plumbing, I think I will wait until I cannot wait anymore.

For those of you who did not know, our kitchen sink was clogged two weeks ago. I tried everything...I mean vinegar, baking soda, boiling water, taking the trap off under the sink (Ok, Rodney did that), and finally I resorted to Drano. After an entire bottle of Drano Max Gel, it was running a little better, so I thought I was going to fix this once and for all. Despite my parents explaining to me that I should just talk to the landlord, and this is why you rent so you don’t have to deal with clogged sinks, I was determined to solve the problem myself. So I drove all over town and bought the only bottle of Drano Foaming Cleaner that I could find. I poured it in, and not much happened. I was discouraged, and I resigned myself to calling the landlord. When Rodney came home, however, the sink magically started working better. We flushed water down it, we ran the garbage disposal (with a bucket over it on account of the Drano), and voila’, we had a running sink. Victory! Who says you can’t be your own plumber?

I headed into the bathroom to take a shower after the victorious moment of realizing that I had stuck with my problem and solved it. I pulled back the curtain with a flourish, only to be greeted by two inches of sludge sitting in my bathtub. Apparently pipes are connected. With chunks of gunk pouring out of the overflow valve whenever we turned on a faucet, this was one plumbing problem I felt no compulsion to solve on my own. Needless to say, we got to meet a very nice plumber that night.

But I think I’ll wait on the heater just in case. No need to meet all the repair men in one month.