Welcome to another chapter of gratitude for Grateful Heart Monday, which for today is for something simple that I am quite proud of doing successfully, which was a slight bit of bathroom plumbing.
But before I talk about that though, let me set the record straight, I am totally not the Bob Villa type on any level. Any home project that needs to be done other than rewiring a stereo system or home computing is generally beyond my expertise. And any type of urgent matter at home such as a plumbing issue, forget about it. My thought is that there’s always someone just a phone call away that can help. Except that wasn’t the case on a Sunday evening during my week of vacation on Tybee Island at the condo I was staying in, when a bathroom sink suddenly got seriously clogged up and nothing was going to be done about it by management until the next day.
For whatever the reason, maybe it was sheer boredom or outright curiosity, why I attempted to fix that sink was beyond me. Regardless, I attempted the obvious first by pouring a lot of hot water down the sink. Of course, that didn’t work. I then went below the sink and undid a clasp that released the drain plug. After pulling it up and out, I found a skinny piece of plastic in the condo that looked like an old blind pulley. I shoved it down the hole and tried to see if there was anything lodged up. I then ran some hot water again but forgot I had left that hole exposed below the sink where that drain plug got screwed in. A rookies mistake I know. I had water everywhere to mark the occasion. After screwing it back in, the sink still wasn’t really draining other than an extremely slow trickle.
Normally at this point, I would have given up and said well, I at least tried. This time I didn’t do that, as I was determined to fix the clog. It’s then I noticed this s-curve pipe below the sink had two “thingies” I could unscrew that would release it. Yes, I did call those plumbing parts “thingies!” LOL! Unfortunately, I forgot to place a bucket below, not knowing water was in that pipe I took off. Ugh, another rookie mistake! Because as I pulled that piece off, a ton of water and stinky water at that, went everywhere, along with clumps of black goop and God knows what else. It had definitely been clogged in at least one spot that’s for sure. Before I did anything else though, I had a big mess to clean up first. After doing so, I found a plastic wastepaper basket in another room and placed it under the drainpipe so I wouldn’t create a third big mess! I then cleaned that piece I took off, reconnected everything I had taken off, and ran the hot water again. Water came out of one of those “thingy” areas. Obviously, I hadn’t screwed it on right. By this point, I think I had dedicated a good hour already trying to fix this bathroom sink. When all was finally reconnected successfully, the sink drained far better, but still wasn’t fully draining the way it should. The final step, when all else fails, USE SOME DRAINO! And wouldn’t you know it, after leaving some of that in there for a good while, running some hot water, and doing it again for a second time, the clog was fully gone, and I had a normally functioning bathroom sink again.
I know this minor repair may sound silly to most. But, for a guy like me who truly struggles with all forms of home improvement, and normally has people do stuff like this for me, this was such a huge achievement for me and something I thought I needed to mark the occasion by sharing my gratitude about it and dedicating today’s Grateful Heart Monday to me becoming Andy the Plumber for a brief, but successful moment, in my life.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
