Fun with awls

This morning, I woke up and took a shower, as I usually do (so far, this is the best post ever, am I right or am I right?).

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While in the shower, I noticed that the water was draining slowly.  It's not a big surprise because, as I've written before, our shower pipes have enough red hair in them such that it probably looks like we shave an orangutan weekly.

Which, to be clear, we do not.  As far as I know. 

Anyway, being the wonderfully thoughtful person I am, I decided to use the Draino MAX gel solution so that the drains would flow freely by the time Joe took his shower.  If you're keeping score at home, this should garner me a good 10 points.

So I get out of the shower and dump 3/4 of the huge bottle into the drain in the bathtub and to my pleasant surprise, it goes down smoothly and without much of a fuss.  I continue to dump the remainder of the gel down both of our sinks.  He shaves which sometimes goops up the sink pipes...and since I'm doing the tub anyway, I might as well get them all done.  Plus 15 points for me.

Thirty minutes goes by and it's now time to rinse the drains with hot water for 15 minutes.  I turn on both sink taps as well as the bathtub tap and finish doing my make-up.

About two minutes go by when I realize that although both sinks are now draining as if they are brand new, the tub is sounding like I'm drawing a bath.

So I peek into the tub and around then is when I gasp.  Because the tub is not draining AT ALL.

Know what that means?  That the water in the tub is a diluted yet still highly toxic solution. 

Know what that means? a) Joe will likely not want to step in it and 2) there is no way in God's green earth I'm going to reach into to try to free whatever the blockage is.  I like my skin on my arms thankyouverymuch.

Quick!  What would MacGuyver do?   I quickly go to our bathroom pantry and look in there for anything that I could stick down in the drain to try to grab hair/debris to free the drain.

Q-tips!  Yes!  That is the solution!  So I grab a Q-tip and put it down in the water ... only the water is too high for me to hold the Q-tip and still have it reach to the drain. I quickly let go as I feel the water brush my fingertips and run to the sink to wash my hands of any on the Drano.  Acid wash jeans may be making a comeback, but I'm too vain to acid-wash my hands.

Around then is when I realize that I did, in fact, drop the Q-tip in the water and what now began as a "Dislodge the Clog" mission has spawned a side mission titled "Operation Q-tip Rescue."

Using various instruments from our bathroom, I rescue the Q-tip and dispose of it in the trashcan without dropping any liquid on the floors.  Plus 30 points for me.

Only the drain?  It's still not draining.

I glance around our bathroom and realize that I can't grab any hair with anything we have in the bathroom.  What I really need is a pair of rubber gloves.  Only I don't know if we have any in our house.  And I don't want to wake up Joe.

So I figure that vice grips probably are just as good and BONUS!  I know where Joe's tool box is. 

I should probably pause here to explain that we live in a loft downtown.  Like most lofts, we only have one window - and by design, the only way that light is going to spread through our loft is to not really have ceilings in our loft.  So the walls of "rooms" don't go all the way to our ceiling (except in the bathroom).  This means that any light in our house immediately spreads to other rooms.  Because I get up earlier than Joe, I try to turn on as few lights as possible so that he can sleep as long as possible.  This usually grants me between 10-15 points daily depending on if I stub my toes in the dark or not.

I silently creep past our bedroom door into the study, reach through the closet to the toolbox where I managed to rifle around to try to find anything that feels like needle nose pliers.  No such luck.  Finally, I put my hands on something long, thin, and metal-y.  Thinking it was a small screwdriver, I retrieved it and crept back to the bathroom.

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Turns out it was a metal thing that kind of looked like a screwdriver but had a knob on the end.  The knob part was made from nice cherry wood.  In other words, it's an awl.  It's a nice awl...but I figured that the acid water wouldn't touch the nice wood - and the metal part would be sharp enough to actually free the drain of hair or whatever was clogging it.

Turns out, after several attempts with the awl, it's not the proper tool for dislodging drains.    Go figure.

Out of time and options, I finally had to bite the bullet and go wake Joe up.  Since I'm no dummy, I first woke him with a soft voice, a calming rub on his shoulder, and a kiss.  Then I explained the problem and said that I was afraid that he'd have to shower at work or something.

He got up without complaining, looked at the tub, saw that it wasn't draining and then got a plunger to unclog the drain.  It worked on the first attempt (plus 500 points for him).

On his way back to the cleaning closet with the plunger, he saw the awl on the bathroom counter. 

"What'd you use the awl for?"

"Oh - I thought that maybe I could MacGuyver the drain with it."

"With my awl?!?"

"Well, yes.  I mean, I couldn't turn the light on because I was afraid it would wake you and I couldn't find a screwdriver or needle nose pliers or-"

"So, you used my AWL??!?!?!"

"Yes!  Aren't you proud of my ingenuity?" 

Turns out, not so much.

Mental note: don't come between a man and his awl.