The Bad Day

A day in which you must call a plumber is a bad day indeed.  And yesterday was that bad day for us. 

The shower in our master bedroom has been problematic for years.  I suspect that our son shoved a Duplo block down the drainpipe during a shower when he was about three or four years old, but I have no proof.  But soon after he played with blocks in the shower (what?  your kids don’t play with blocks in the shower?) the water began to linger instead of draining promptly.  We called a handyman friend (who charged us a dollar a minute) and he used his fancy drain-unclogging tool thing-a-majig and pulled up a clump of hair and said maybe that would do the trick.

And it sort of did for awhile.  But for the past four or five years, the shower’s been persnickety and uncooperative.  We’d purchase gallons of hair-clog remover and treat the drain repeatedly and usually it would work.  But not for long.  We lived with it, though, like you live with a neighbor who never mows his lawn.  What can you do, really? 

Last week, though, the water stopped draining.  It turned into a fetid puddle with floating hair.  And I poured two gallon-sized jugs of hair-clog remover down the drain.  The chemical-filled water just pooled there, belligerent, daring me to do something.  Stupid water.  Stupid drain.  Stupid pipes.  Do they not know how irritable I am? 

So, after a week of standing water in the drain, my husband called a plumber who seemed like a perfectly reasonable, nice man (with an accent that made me think, Moldova?).  He wrote down the estimated price to repair our impassable drain as if saying the number aloud would be blasphemous.  ($384, before tax and the $50 service charge!)  My husband said, “This is guaranteed, right?  Ha!  Ha!” and a dark cloud passed over the face of the plumber and he shook his head and said, “Not really.” 

Then, he went upstairs where I heard metal digging in the drains.  I heard the loud scritch, scritch, scratch inside the pipes.  I heard scary thumps inside the walls. 

When it was all said and done, he said that the sink was full of hair (duh, I’ve never poured those hair-dissolving chemicals into the sink because while it drained slowly, it still drained and it never felt important to me, but now, I just paid that guy $126 to pull hair out of it, alas).  Then he said that he definitely felt something in the shower drain, but couldn’t pull it up, so he pushed it–he thinks–through the pipe.  The water immediately drained, so he was cautiously optimistic of success.  However, he said he had no way of being certain and that if it happens again, they’ll have to cut holes in the walls and replace the pipes.

Over my dead body.

So, I wrote a check for $484 and all I have to show for it is a shower that drains. 

Last night, just as I was serving dinner, the power snapped off.  I ran to the computers and unplugged everything.  Then I fumbled for candles while pointlessly flipping light switches as I walked from room to room.  The children seemed so much louder in the utter stillness of black silence.  “Shhhh!” I kept begging.  “Shhhhh!”  No need to shout when my head is in danger of blowing a fuse!

The power stayed off for three hours.  During that time, I read a “Good Housekeeping” magazine by candlelight.  The children watched a Netflix DVD on a portable DVD player.  Grace watched a Dora DVD on her dad’s laptop computer until it ran out of juice.  Then she and my husband fell asleep though it was only 7:30 p.m.  I played a game of “Blokus” with my boys, which ended up being fun.  I bought the game for Christmas last year, but we’ve never played it because the second my daughter saw it, she claimed it and interferred with anyone who dared play without her.  (Also, I hate playing board games.)  

Then, glory be!  The power returned.  I plugged in the computers and accessories and everything worked, except my computer which appears to be dead.  Or at least, mortally wounded.  Or in a coma.  The fans hum and a lone yellow light shines on the front, but it does not boot.  I am lost.

So, I am working on my husband’s laptop, which causes me to make typos every other line because I am not used to the letters being all squished together like this.  But I am thankful for it and for the sunshine and blue skies which seem like an apology for the high winds and rain of yesterday.  So, I forgive the weather for killing my computer and the unknown foreign object in my drain which cost me $500. 

The universe owes me some compensation.