To make fishing the junk out easier, I figured I'd drain the water. I knew I had a short length of plastic tubing that would be perfect but I couldn't find it, so I got a plastic Calistoga bottle and got most of it out. I worried now about whether I could recycle it after it had come into contact with whatever was in that water.
And what was in that water? Whatever it was, I now had this really gross, oily stuff on my hands. It just wouldn't wash off. My reaction was "gee, someone should invent something to keep from getting stuff like this on your hands!" In a rare moment of lucidity, and clarity, a veritable epiphany (one of my favorite words) it came to me.
Oh yeah, rubber gloves!
The picture in the instructions that showed the funnel? There were hands in it but they weren't wearing rubber gloves. I really should sue. Anyway, I couldn't find rubber gloves any more than I could find the palstic tubing so, a defeated man, I spend lots of time washing my hands and went to bed, having brushed my teeth over my not clogged kitchen sink.
It's been said to married folk that you should never go to be angry. Thank God I'm single because my sink was clogged, the clog remover had bad directions, I'd wasted much of my day failing to fix the problem and washing crap off my hands, cursing not having the common sense to keep either my tubing or a pair of rubber gloves or even to read about the hot water... THIS ISN'T THE RETIREMENT I'D PLANNED!
The next morning, the sink was empty of water, although the coating of sludge was enough to gross out a third grade boy. I bought some gloves and Liquid Plumr Gel, and finished the job. The sun came out. Life is good. I even found the tubing - it was in the garage.
In the corporate life, a failed project results in a "lessons learned" document. What a waste. Middle management pats itself on the back, and the document is filed and forgotton. What did I learn in this episode? I'll forget the mechanics of unclogging a sink the next time it comes up. I won't find the gloves or even remember I need them. HOT water? No. The real lesson learned?
Relax, dude!
Except when my sink gets clogged.
So it was that I broke out my drain unclogging liquid and prepared for battle. I went through all the remaining bottle with nothing to show for it but an education. First, they made quite a point that it would sink through the standing water to go straight to the clog. So why do the instructions say you should use a funnel? Never mind, I didn't have a funnel tall enough to reach through the standing water to the hole. (I'm sure there's a word for where the water goes down and the stopper goes, but I can't think of it.) And if I did have such a funnel, the 16 ounce dose wouldn't all go down right away so I'd have to hold the funnel in place since my stopper can't be removed. So I just poured the dose into the standing water and took it on faith that it would find its way ever downward to the clog and work its magic.
Yeah, right. I was supposed to wait 15 minutes, then flush with water. Like, I'm, going to just hang around my really gross sink for 15 minutes. No, I went to my computer and lost track of time. I suspect it was an hour later I remembered my problem but found all the standing water still there.
Maybe the clog was now loose, so I broke out my plunger and started plunging. Okay, the dictionary doesn't recognize "plunging" as making use of a plunger, but in a perfect world it would. Of course, if it was
