The Drain.

I'm not sure when I became such a sad sap, but today has contained validation of such in a multitude of forms. I woke up this morning with a mission: to seek revenge upon the bathroom sink.

You see, for the past month or so the water at the bottom of the sink has drained slower and slower, until it doesn't really visibly drain as much as sit stagnantly and threaten to overflow whilst I, having forgotten about this inconvenience, peek through stinging soapy eyes and claw for the handle. But that's really been the worst of it, just an inconvenience, and nothing really more. The sink and I had lived in a state of mutual tolerance/neglect. Until yesterday. Yesterday the bathroom sink, a brimming cesspool by way of recent face-washing, consumed my phone. And though I quickly pulled it out, cursing, the damage had been done. So as my phone, swaddled tightly in a dish towel, baked in the oven set to low, I attempted to appease the fates I had so tempted and been scorned.

I drove to the intown Ace, and at the recommendation of a burly employee, bought a two and a half foot plastic rod fit with menacing barbs that were sure to uproot whatever questionable microbial mass had taken up residence in my pipes. So, following directions, I inserted the "Zip-it" tool, as it was called, into the drain, which it begrudgingly accepted about two-thirds of before it would go no further. At this point, the directions say to reverse the process and pull the thing out, a literary instruction accompanied by a visual depiction of the Zip-it tool leaving the sink, hairy clog-worthy clumps clinging to it. So as I pulled, expecting to hear the welcomed gurgle and vacuum sound of all my drainage concerns being released, I was clearly not prepared for the ordeal that lay ahead of me. It did not budge. And as my naive belief that this 3 cent recycled plastic piece of revitalized junk-waste could actually help me slowly evaporated, I tugged upon it's square tail to no avail. Tired, and faced with the prospect of devising a plan B, I took the dog for a walk. The bad news: my drain was still clogged. The good news: I now knew what was clogging it, and it was the Zip-it tool.

Take two. After removing my phone from the oven and staring hopefully into it's steamy face as I pressed all the buttons and it vibrated uncontrollably, I observed it's vacant eyes and crimson voided warranty sticker and resigned myself to purchasing another rather than wait three days for the short-circuit diagnoses I knew was coming. Sprint informed me that this was my third damage claim filed in a year, and that it would no longer offer me total equipment protection insurance. Fantastic. Asurian is officially losing money by insuring me. I'm a risky client. This is amusing to me. See this past watery incident is possibly the only cellular accident I am solely responsible for, but the fact remains that this will be my fourth phone in a year, and though not able to purchase another less expensive phone due to contract reasons, I clearly have no luck with Blackberry(s).

After tearfully parting with yet another hundred dollar copay, I attacked the drain issue with renewed vengeance. The last of my conceivable environmentally-friendly solutions, I picked up baking soda and vinegar from the store to complete the volcanic science experiment I was about to perform in my bathroom, and on second thought, stopped in the cleaning products aisle to examine professional "1st try guaranteed" products. You know, the kind of products that come with more than one warning label and an entire panel dedicated to self-help if any area of your body comes into contact it. The kind of stuff that people in white lab coats find traces of in the country's drinking water, and 30 years later parents of children born with one eye are judgmentally asked, "Well, you didn't use Drano, did you?" Heavy duty Drano in tow, I left Publix resolute. This clog was going down.
A half cup of baking soda and vinegar later, the inner child in me was delighted, but the sink was still draining slowly, and some disturbed mold mass floated menacingly beneath the bubbling surface of water/acid mixture. It was time for the big guns. Let me first preface this by saying I did everything I could think of barring actual disassembly of the pipes in the cabinet to NOT use the frightening DNA-degrading concoction that is this cleaner, and thus tried hard to avoid contributing to the future population of cyclops that is now destined to grace this earth. However, some things simply must be done.
The Drano gel needed 30 minutes to corrode the blockage to the best of it's ability, and during this time I periodically stood over the sink basin, staring expectantly, waiting for a miracle.

All in all, I don't see much of a difference in the draining speed of my sink. I might just have to live with it. I guess the moral of all this is a lesson in the dangers of procrastination. It's the observable and usually relatively ignorable problems in life will eventually culminate and proceed to consume your phone, money, and entire day. It's all just another step in finding this balance they say exists...somewhere in the chaos. As for me, I'm still working on finding the happy medium, but I can say that despite the trials and tribulations of the day, mine was still a good one. Sometimes life isn't about the problems themselves, it's about teaching you how to accept and deal with them and still have something left over to be a happy person. So cheers, here's to sad sap, self deprecating story, that I publish phone-less and alone, but with enough room to laugh at myself and see a silver lining. And that will be that.