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[ # ] Sinking
January 16th, 2007 under Daily life

We have a really nice plumber. He’s handsome and chipper and after installing a toilet for us admired its beauty. I like a person who gets the aesthetics of what they do.

Saturday we went to the grocery store and afterwards Honey cleaned out some suspicious food from the fridge. Some of the suspicious food was pasta. I merrily disposed of it by slamming it down the disposal and whirring the disposal around. On the second whir, gross water began to back up into the sink.

Honey and I both had flashbacks to the apartment we lived in before we bought our house. It had a really problematic disposal and we often had to get the building manager to come deal with it. Our landlord liked to quote some municipal/state/federal code that said that he only was responsible for getting water INTO the apartment and we were responsible for getting it OUT. In other words, he wanted us to deal with the crappy disposal he didn’t want to fix.

Well, now we knew we were responsible for all directions of flow. We plunged. There were old straws in the sink. Who put them there? Can’t say. Not us. We removed the trap. Got water all over the world. The sink stayed stopped up. Saturday of a holiday weekend.

With hope in my heart, I called the plumber yesterday, hoping he might not observe federal/state/municipal holidays. He called back this morning.

We’ve been eating cereal and frozen food that can be microwaved. We’ve been rinsing dishes in the half bath where we keep the cats’ litter box.

Turns out that you shouldn’t put pasta or other starchy foods down the disposal. At least according to the internet. And since everything on the internet is true…

I’m in plumber zone. He was going to come by 10. Then he called and said he couldn’t. I went to work. Now, I’m meeting him at 2:30. It will all be worth it. Functioning kitchen sinks are good good.

I’m going out-of-town tomorrow and Honey has a tendency to eat cereal for dinner when I’m gone. A non-functioning sink will insure that she does that and only that. So, I’m going to meet the handsome plumber and pay him a lot of money to fix our problem. They say there are those who have more money than sense. Now where did I put my checkbook?

Read the Comments

[ # 895 ] Comment from the only daughter [January 16, 2007, 1:10 pm]

I hope plumber dude doesn’t cancel/reschedule again (I’ve had that happen twice).

Wishing you a clog free drain and a return to your regularaly scheduled life. –and that it’s not tooooo expensive.

[ # 896 ] Comment from Wen [January 16, 2007, 7:49 pm]

I’ll nag the missus once or twice, if you like. :)

[ # 897 ] Comment from treecup [January 16, 2007, 11:31 pm]

I will give you some of my sense for some of your money.

Oh wait… I have neither.

[ # 898 ] Comment from scout [January 17, 2007, 12:31 pm]

Honey here, who blew off work early to meet the plumber so that Sporks could wrap up some duties before leaving town.

Claudio the plumber showed up right on time and had us up and running again in an hour’s time, complete with a rebuilt portion of pipe that was suspiciously easy for us nonplumbers to dismantle. (They shouldn’t just slide apart, right?)

He brought his three kids, who were all really cute in competing to help Dad. I asked which of them were going into the family profession. Both girls looked at me like, You’re kidding, right?

“I’ve known a female plumber or two,” I said. “Cool ladies.”

I hope Claudio didn’t think I was “recruiting.”

[ # 899 ] Comment from weese [January 18, 2007, 10:25 am]

see, I don’t like those disposals… just one more thing to have problems with.
get a dog. they will eat all the stuff you need to put down a disposal.

[ # 900 ] Comment from WordsRock [January 18, 2007, 4:41 pm]

What made you so certain the plumber would be handsome? I don’t think I’ve ever met a handsome plumber. Nice ones, grumpy ones, late ones, ones that let their butt cracks hang out in prime plumber fashion, but never a handsome one.

Thanks for yet another reason to dispose of old food in the trash can instead of running it through the disposal. weese, our dogs have very delicate stomachs. Feeding such stuff to them would be a bad, bad idea!

[ # 901 ] Comment from SassyFemme [January 19, 2007, 8:29 pm]

For future reference, add butternut squash peelings to the list of things that shouldn’t go in the disposal. I did that many years ago on Christmas. I have the pictures of my dad and Fran doing plumbing work that day. Sometimes I’m amazed I’m still married!

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