The Great Weekend Plumbing Adventure.

 Yes, indeed, plan ahead about plumbing if you are going to have a #pandemic!

Going to have? How about delivered whether one wants or not.

RantWoman for the last week or so has had recurrences of drainage problems in her bathtub and kitchen sink.

There would be the usual suspects: grease and food matter in the kitchen and a lot of hair in the bathtub. A friend suggested RantWoman try baking soda and vinegar in the kitchen. RantWoman tried it, a couple times. No change. RantWoman did a certain amount of bailing water and pouring down the toilet. RantWoman also became acutely aware of how much water winds up in short wash jobs. And RantWoman has begun to climg the walls about washing dishes.

 RantWoman finally got her act together to submit a work order both on paper and with a photo of the paper attached to the email. Friday morning, there was a knock at RantWoman's door. 

"Housing. I am here about your plumbing."

"Do you need me to put on a mask?"

"Yes please and maintain social distance."

"Sure. No problem."

Maintenance guy was busy in the bathroom for a good while. The culprit of course: hair. RantWoman will replace the plastic screen she has been counting on. RantWoman will actually substitute something called the TubSchroom.

RantWoman also means to add a couple instruction video links.though applying one's search engine of choice will yield plenty of options.

Wait. RantWoman is getting ahead of herself.

Maintenance Guy had a big powerful plunger. He worked at the kitchen sink for quite awhile. This did not move any water that RantWoman could tell but it seemed to loosen a lot of gunk. Maintenance Guy said the situation needed a plumber to take the u joint off and clean. That would take until Monday at least. So RantWoman bailed.some more water and made temporary peace with her fusses about cleanliness.

RantWoman went away to do something else. When RantWoman came back, some of the water had drained out of the sink so RantWoman tried another round of baking soda and vinegar. Has RantWoman mentioned: the vinegar was donated by a neighbor who did not want it and offered it without even knowing about the sink situation. That round of soda and vinegar did not seemed to make a difference, though when RantWoman woke up in the morning the sink had drained quite a bit.

Somewhere in here RantWoman had a conversation with Little Sister. Little Sister was singing the praises of a kit made by Drano with a bottle of drain cleaner and a plastic wiry tool to use to try to dislodgeclog material before one pours in the liquid solution. Little Sister reported that this could be ordered from Amazon Fresh. RantWoman has never used Amazon Fresh. RantWoman was kind of down from the tiresome sink issues. Finally, Little Sister just said "How about I just order it for you?"

RantWoman has Dial-a-Tirade issues with Amazon. RantWoman also was not charmed with the thought of interacting with screens at that moment. Little Sister on the other hand is a whiz and the queen of family online orders. RantWoman realized she should just shut up and Accept Help Dammit! 

Little Sister took down exact delivery address and looked up delivery windows that would fit in RantWoman's full Saturday Zoom schedule. Little Sister also wrote something in the instructions about "Customer Is BLind." The delivery window approached. RantWoman had just gotten onto one of the Zoom events when the driver called. The line dropped a couple times. Driver was not in the parking lot closest to RantWoman. RantWoman hit redial and got some Amazon logistics recording suggesting RantWoman look something up online. 

Baking Soda and Drano Kit

The white foam erupts

Look the drain is bare!

NO! Online is not  going to help find the driver so RantWoman just texted and the driver called back. RantWoman described what she was wearing, told the driver she does not see well and thought she needed to check a different parking lot that it would take a couple minutes to get to. RantWoman saw a figure coming toward her. "Are you the driver?" Bingo! Connection Made. RantWoman came back to her Zoom with a giant bottle of vinegar, two LARGE boxes of Baking soda, 3 Drano kits and the TubShroom pictured above. RantWoman also decided that babysitting Drano would be too much fun for the rest of her Saturday night even even by RantWoman nerd standards.

In the morning, the sink had also drained some. RantWoman and Little Sister wound up mixing Drano issues in with the sister vibes about RantMom and RantWoman decided just to pour and see what happened. Little Sister decided she did not need to listen. RantWoman poured. And waited. And Waited. There were a couple eruptions of white foam and a definite chlorine odor. At last the sink cleared and RantWoman followed the directions about pouring boiling water down the drain. RantWoman poured several kettles full of boiling water down the drain over the day. 

RantWoman at first poured slowly and only until the indentation right at the drain was full. The water drained. RantWoman added another kettleful. Gradually RantWoman was able to pour the whole tea kettle. Even more exciting, eventually, RantWoman consistently heard the sound of water flowing freely!

At this point, RantWoman plans to attempt dishwashing, probably with some reduce water usage strategies in the morning. Cross fingers things still work tomorrow!

And if flows hold up, count on weekly rituals with the soda, vinegar and then boiling water.