A hairy situation

Last year's trouble was blackouts. This year, it's the water pipes. When the water in the bathroom sink wouldn't go down fast enough, or even at all, my mother said my hair was too thick and too long. I felt guilty, since I love trimming my hair by the sink. I do use a magazine to catch the falling strands, but sometimes I get lazy when I'm doing a quick snip. So, with that weighing over me, I got some special liquid to pour into the pipes, a little sink plunger, and this nifty malleable stick with the intention to undo the result of my negligence. I was determined to fix the problem myself - if I could get things working on my own, why bother calling in the plumber?

I got the water to go down eventually, and then the toilet bowl started acting up. The water level in there didn't look right, the flushing didn't sound right, and I was getting nervous. So my hair clogged the pipes in the sink and that was somehow affecting the flushing mechanism? When my mother told me that the bath water wasn't going down either, I felt like getting a crew cut. I used a bigger plunger to work the bathtub, and got rid of the bath water eventually.

This took place for the most of Saturday and Saturday night. Sunday afternoon, after we returned from church and household-items shopping, we returned to a half-flooded bathroom. The water was seeping in from the neighbor's side. I went out of the apartment and saw that the laundry room was thorougly flooded and parts of the ground floor carpet was soaked. My neighbor's mini corridor (shared by the laundry room) was damp and pungent. Okay, I said to myself, this is certainly not my fault. It's the building's problem; I just let a few strands go into the pipes and no harm ever came of it.

So much for all my mom's and my handiwork on Saturday. We only brushed the tip of the iceberg. The office had to call in the heavy-duty guys - plumbing, sanitizing, the works. They cleaned up my bathroom and got everything working again. Thank goodness, because they had to turn off the water for some time, and my mom and I were wondering what to do about dinner, showers, face-cleansing, flossing, brushing teeth. I was prepared to pack my bag and head to NCRB (school gym) to get clean or maybe even spend the night at a cheap motel. After our bathroom got the industrial cleaning, my mom and I set to work - adding more disinfectant, scrubbing the bathtub, replacing all our toiletries and the bathroom supplies. I even shined the faucets.

All's well now. And what did I learn from this episode? That I shouldn't think every problem is my fault and try to fix it on my own. That I have to consider the larger picture. That even though it wasn't the culprit, my hair-trimming practice should always be carried out with magazine in hand to collect those nasty strands of hair that travel (or don't travel) goodness-knows-where once they disappear down the sink.

Posted by Monoceros at October 18, 2004 12:35 AM