Labor Day Weekend 2008- Part One

We were ready to relax during the long Labor Day weekend. Joseph and Vincent both started school on the Wednesday prior. Yes, Joseph survived his first day of High School and first day in public school. To get them both to school caused me to give up the car pooling arrangement we were in. Without the carpool I no longer have the occasional option to bike to work either. The good news is that the commute is rather straight forward and quick. This week will be the true test as the roads add additional traffic from returning vacationers and other schools starting their sessions.

Besides school both Connie and I were facing deadlines at work. Connie was working overtime and had the potential dilemna of working the holiday weekend. Well that didn't come to pass and we both breathed a sigh of relief. Yipee, a weekend of soccer and barbeques- oh, and plumbing. Have I stated how I hate plumbing.

I hate plumbing. You hate plumbing. Actually, we love plumbing when it works but hate plumbing problems. Drip, drip, flood, flood, stink, stink, money, money. The boys bathroom sinks has been slowly backing up for a couple of months. If I didn't hate plumbing PROBLEMS I would have taken care of it weeks ago. But the wedding, Olympics, Getty visit, car breakin, school preps, you name it they all had priority. Until now. The drain was no longer a drain but a damn. This happened the Thursday before so I knew on Friday that a little character building was in order before I could enjoy the weekend. Did the world need another character I wondered. Evidently.

So what we were looking at was a simple clog, right? No we were not. An by the way no clog is simple. No plumbing job is simple which just kills me because plumbing is the most low tech application of technology in our society. It has to be simple, reliable, and cheap. Well it would be if, tell me if you can relate, those damn 10 cent parts don't become obsolete. I have encountered any combination of the following:

Parts are obsolete- must buy everything new including special tools

Person who worked on plumbing last was an idiot and mickey moused everything because he just wanted to get it to work. You can cover some sins by over tightening and using a bunch of plumbers putty and goop. Heck, I have been the idiot too. Feel sorry for the guy who moved in the last place I lived.

Can't find any of my plumbing tools that I bought over time. Those same tools which when I bought them weren't quite right but I knew one day they would be useful. Well today is the day and I can't find them.

Looks like I need to turn that nut that leads to the pipe going into the wall. Oh, oh, the nut is seized onto the pipe in the wall. How about if I just- crap! there is a leak in the wall now. I hate plumbing!

Heck, I will just use this new snake thing that looks just like the one the plumber uses. I am going to save me $75 with this 25 foot baby. Well how come I can only get 2 feet of line in. Maybe I need to.... fill in the blanks. I had the snake go up the vent instead of down the drain. I used the option to power it with a hand drill. What a spinning stinking mess that was. Needless to say, with the prospects of a quick solution dimming quickly, a sheepish call to Roto Plunger is made. None of the plumbers have laughed in my face yet.

But this weekend had a different ending. Yes, I had to buy a tool to replace the one that was misplaced. But the new one is smaller and did make the work easier. I bought more parts than I needed because there were two possible sizes that were close. As it turned out a need some of each plus some parts that I bought 20 years ago and have been moved twice- finally used those parts! Out came the snake purchased 18 years ago. My record was 1 and 3 with that baby. Success on the first try emboldeded me to a second effort years later. But I failed miserably the second time around which became the beginning of a losing streak.

Oh, I dreaded the snake. I was going to try the plunger first but I couldn't find the plunger. That wouldn't work anyway because we all knew that the clog was about 5 feet or more into the drainage. The boys use Noxema to wash their oily skin and then flush the gummy residue down the sink. It was just a matter of time. So I grab the snake and head into the bathroom for the next test of character. Shoot, the plumbing looks weird. It is not a standard trap-it looks, it IS FrankenPlumbing. A piece of this, another piece of a different diameter, and then jam it into the wall. Oh, yeah, crank everything real tight. Real tight.

The only thing that saved me is that I had a FrankenBatch of plumbing parts. With the parts I bought and those in hand everything that needed replacing was replaced. I had to replace parts because.. because..plumbing sucks. I am getting ahead of myself. Attempt 1 to snake, replace parts, and test was a total failure. And Messy too. But the next time I had Joseph help me with feeding the snake and hand cranking it. We managed to get about 10 feet of line in and pull some gunk out. I replaced some gaskets and one nut, cranked real hard and had one leak. Oh- wait, after a gurlge and gulp, the drain drains. Quickly and swooshy and, wait, one more crank here, and no leaks! So Labor Day weekend started at 9 PM but I truly was going to enjoy it. More about the rest of the weekend some other time. Vincent played soccer and I even had an opportunity to take on a balky Paper Shredder. URRRR.