Back Alley Plumber

I fixed my own sink last week. That might not be impressive to you, but for me, it’s a miracle. My husband is a master fixer of things, so I don’t usually have the need to fix things, other than dinner. He can Macgyver almost anything together, which is one of his many positive assets, and honestly, one of the reasons I married him. One of the benefits of marriage, in my mind, is never having to call a repairman. Or reach things off of high shelves. Or take my car to get it fixed. Not that I expect him to fix it, just that I don't ever want to have to speak to another mechanic if I can avoid it.

But back to my sink, which had been clogged on and off for over a month. I have that kind of woman hair that can block up a drain, wrap itself around your toe, and sneak its way into your pasta dinner. I have a lot of hair too. I shed like an old cat, frequently and indiscriminately. I also have a bad habit of rinsing the hair gel and the hair that gets stuck in it off my hands, which means that every day a wad of hair and hair glue gets washed down the sink, only to end up lining the pipe, where it collects over time until eventually the water can no longer find passage and pools in the sink. At that point, my husband pours half a bottle of Drain-o into the mess, chemically burning the hair wad just enough to let the water drain in a small whirlpool, but not fast enough to actually suck soap bubbles or gobs of toothpaste. My sink tends to look like a Civil War battlefield.

After burning the hair wad twice, it was clear that more effort was required to unclog the clog. My husband said he would take the drain apart and remove the clump, but he didn’t take action in a timely way. I am not really allowed to write about my husband, so that he will remain, in fact, my husband, but I must explain here that he and I have differing opinions about how time works. In my mind, if I ask him to do something, like fix my sink, he should do it as soon as is convenient, or within three days, whichever comes first. He doesn’t agree. He thinks the perfect time to do a chore is when he actually does it. You could ask him to do something and if he gets around to it a year later, there you go. Mission accomplished.

I asked him to unclog the drain, but he didn’t meet that three day criteria I explained a moment ago. Plus, it’s a sink; I use it pretty much a gazillion times a day. I have the kind of drain with the little lever that you pull up to close it, rather than the kind with the grate in the base of the sink. The thingy-do that closes the drain does not come out of the sink; it is attached somehow, using some sort of algorithm that is beyond my comprehension, so it isn’t like I could just pull it out of the sink and start digging around. I did attempt to use my lesser pair of tweezers to extract a clump of something, but it wasn't not long enough to find the blockage.

I got one of those cheap dry cleaner hangers, the metal ones with the tube of cardboard where the pants hang or sweaters are folded. I removed the cardboard tube, straightened out the hanger arm, stuck the hooked end into the sink, and jimmied it up and down. I pulled the hanger out, and nothing happened. I tried again, on the other side of the drain-blocking thing, ramming the hanger in as far as it could go and moving it around. This time when I pulled it out, a huge clod of hair and slime and mold came out on the hooked end. Encouraged, I stuck it in a third time, twisting it a little, and dislodged another small clot.

My husband walked into the bathroom and asked me what I was doing.

“I just gave the sink an abortion!” I said proudly, pointing to the clog that I had flung on the side of the porcelain basin.

“That’s nasty,” he said.

I turned the water on, watching it flow freely through the drain.

“I did it,” I said proudly. “I fixed my own sink!”

“Cool,” he answered nonchalantly. “Now I don’t have to take that drain apart.”

I wiped the clump out of my sink with a wad of paper towels and turned the water on higher, delighted that the sink did not fill up with water.

It turns out that wire hangers have a purpose after all, other than playing Joan Crawford. It also turns out that I don’t have to rely on my husband to fix everything around the house, but for the love of God, don’t tell him that. Everyone needs to be needed, and I am pretty sure there is something wrong with the toilet in the laundry room.