After dinner I was about to be the good husband and clean the dishes for my wife. The pots and pans were piled up as usual and the sink was full of plates. My personal standard operating procedure is to start with the sink.
I rinsed off the dishes and the pots then turned on the garbage disposal.
The garbage disposal is a marvel to me; when you turn it on the water surges in a roaring vortex and plunges itself down the gaping throat of the machine, but not this time. The machine made a gurgling moan and the water simply fluttered in the sink. It was clogged. My wife confessed to pealing a field of potatoes for dinner and sent the skins down the disposal earlier along with a crate of onion skins. This is dreadful news. I imagined the pipes filled with a cement like starch plug stretching to the water treatment plant.
I contemplated the actions to take, none were welcome thoughts. I could get a plumber to come and dismantle the myriad of plastic pipes and force a coiled steel snake into the mystery of where they all go. But the cost of a professional trained in the demolition arts was beyond our budget by hundreds of dollars. I could try to do it myself but that would probably take about a week and have dubious results. The last option was to buy some caustic stuff and dump it down the drain while wearing protective garments in the hope that the caustic would only eat the organic material and not the solder that is holding the house together.
I took a break and sat down at the desk and prayed for God's help, and after a while came up with an unforeseen solution, the plunger. I took the wooden handle of the plunger with two hands and poised like St George facing the dragon prepared myself to do battle with the sink. I eased it through the whitish water and set the red rubber mouth over the drain and pumped the ritual motions of plunging the sink. Water splashed all over the counter, the kitchen floor and the wall across the room. I tried to use the plunger to suck and to push but gave up when my arms got cramped.
My wife gave it a try with no better luck. But a third time of plunging the water began to slowly slide down the drain like some Chicago eating slime from a movie in the 1950s returning to its radioactive cave. Feeling confident I ran more water into the sink. This second dousing of water sat like the first. I turned on the disposal and it just danced in the sink. My wife and I returned to the relay of plunging the drain. My fears that the drain would consume my life savings and precipitate a post midlife crisis returned. With renewed effort I gave determined single burst of plunging and sucking. Then movement as the water chased the former gallons down the drain.
Fearfully I ran the water and this lot seemed to be willing to do what water is supposed to do when splashing in a sink- it flowed down the drain.
I am thankful to have dodged the bullet of a major repair. We have examined the pipes and now know we need to be ready to do some work there but now we can plan on it and get ready for it.
