A tale of the Old Man and the Clog

By James Lileks, Star Tribune

Last update: November 6, 2005 - 10:00 PM

Today's how-to hint: how you can waste an entire Sunday afternoon getting a clog out of the drain. Because that's how you really want to spend your free time. You want to turn on the disposal and see a geyser of unimaginable gunk shoot out the other sink and splash all over the walls. The walls you recently repainted. You want the gunk to glurg out on the floor, as well, so you can spend some time mopping up indistinct craptastic organic matter before you even get to the sink.

Once that's done, you really, really want to get out the plunger and work on the drain. Up and down and up and down and splorp! Yank it up, glaring at the drain: Do not trifle with me, pipes. I have done this before. I have dealt with your kind. I know stuff. I fought a clog in '88 in a house in St. Paul, and it was a contest worthy of a Hemingway novel. Back and forth we fought, the struggle stretching into the night until I finally dislodged an unholy bolus that had been assembling in dark, rank secrecy since the time of FDR.

But that was then; now a new challenger has appeared to test your mettle. At first, you're annoyed: The plunging, it does nothing. You plunge one sink and the other rises with a foul brew; you plunge that sink and the horrid sludge rises in the other pan. This means it's plugged beyond the point where the pipes join. Clever, but predictable. So you pour half a bottle of Liquid-Plumr down the pipe. Of course, it will do nothing. When has Liquid-Plumr ever done anything but make it inevitable that you call Solid-Plumr? Of course, you pour the rest in. Nothing. So now you have a sink full of caustic chemicals. You want to plunge some more, because you're angry; this is war. This is personal.

You empty the sinks into a bucket, cup by cup. You turn on the disposal: Old Faithful. You mop up the floor and swab the walls. Repeat until the sinks are empty. Now, the nuclear option: the snake. You feed the entire length down the pipes. You turn and churn until your arm aches, then you withdraw the snake. You can't get it out. You pull and pull, imagining the pointy end flying out the drain and sticking in your eye. Fine. You'll wear a patch. They're sexy. But you get it out, and you plunge some more. Huzzah! Excelsior!

Then you clean the sinks and the floor and the bucket and the plunger and the snake and the counter and treat your skin, which has been soaking in Liquid-Plumr. You have done your manly duty.

Oh: Right. This is a how-to hint. How do you experience this joy vicariously? Take the guts of three large pumpkins. Push them down the garbage disposal. Run the water. Feel remorse.

Call your husband.

jlileks@startribune.com • 612-673-7858 More daily at lileks.com.

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