In Which There is Plumbing

This story is from the beginning of the semester, and some of you have heard it, though not in the dramatic detail which is its due.  I waged a war with my kitchen sink.

See that part that says "cleanout"?  Yeah, none of mine have that.

Here is how it all went down.  A little bit after coming home from winter break, I noticed my sink starting to drain slowly.  Then very slowly.  I figured there was some gunk in the p-trap, since my sink strainer had broken a while back and I hadn't replaced it yet.  Feeling it was worth a shot, I dumped some vinegar and baking soda down there, followed by hot water.  It bubbled pleasingly.  And did nothing.  I opened up my p-trap, and it didn't even look clean, and with unsavory black murk everywhere, it was impossible to say what might be down there or in the pipe just past it.  Possibly werewolves, I don't know.

I called my uncle, and asked if he'd had any success with Liquid Plumr.  He said that sometimes it did the trick, so I went out and got some and dutifully followed the directions.  This was like trying to carve a marble statue with a quill pen, apparently, because if anything, it drained worse after that.  I opened the p-trap again.  It looked marvelously clean.  The problem, then, was further on.  I called my uncle again.  He said that if I wanted to get a plumbing snake, just a smaller and cheaper one, I could give that a shot and he would reimburse me.

I went to the hardware store, and got the cheapo plumbing snake.  The pictures on it showed how it used a flat steel wire to easily go around the corners of basic household pipes.  It lied a lot.  After a damp and frustrating half hour or so, I realized that I was getting nowhere, and so I would have to go back the next day (I had classes to get to) and get a snake with a wire coil, because this one was entirely inadequate.

In the morning, I returned the snake.  At this point, it had been most of a week in which I could only do dishes a few at a time, the sink backed up so badly.  I got a new snake.  Determined, I put on loud folk music, got massive amounts of paper towels together, and opened the pipes under the sink up once more.  As I worked, I realized there was a sharp bend just past the wall, and because of the bend of the pvc pipe that hooked into the wall, I couldn't see how to angle the snake.  "That's all right," I thought, "I'll just take the pvc pipe off the wall too."  That move was what really led to disaster.

I did that.  I snaked the drain down to a point in the basement where I could tell it hit another right angle.  I dragged out what seemed to be quite a lot of gunk.  I put it all back together.  I turned on the water.  It did not back up immediately, as it had been doing.  I allowed myself to feel briefly triumphant.  I had battled the sink and won.  I would do all my dishes now.   I would--

A noise.  It went: dripdripdripdrip.  I turned the water off and looked under the sink.  Where the pvc pipe met the metal pipe in the wall, water was just starting to pour out.  I thought maybe I just hadn't gotten it tight enough.  I took everything apart again and put it all back together again.  I tightened everything down.  This time, not only did the wall pipe leak, but one of the places at the top of the p-trap was starting to dribble too.  I was about ready to cry, or possibly become a plumbing-related supervillain.  It was a Friday, and there was no way I could get a plumber in.  I called my uncle again and told him my story of woe.  He said that over the weekend, I might try putting a new washer on the pipe, and getting a channel lock to further tighten all the pipes.

Refusing to be beaten, I did that.  I tried a new plastic washer.  Then a rubber washer.  Teflon tape.  I tried a little telekinesis too, because what the heck.  The pipe at the wall merrily kept leaking.  Finally, after taking everything apart yet again, I really looked at the metal pipe in the wall.  The threading was a little rust-covered on one side, and I realized as I stared at it that it was not even quite a circle any more.

So... awesome.  I had to admit defeat.  This was beyond my abilities.  I didn't even put it back together again.  What was the point?

On Monday, I got a plumber in.  He said it was an easy fix.  I rejoiced.  He did something magical to attach a new piece of pvc to the wall pipe that would join the pvc of the other pipes, and I would never have to worry about that stupid imperfect pipe again, hurray!

Except... even though the sink took a little longer to back up, it was still backing up.  So he snaked it.  He ran into the same spot I had, where it takes a 90-degree turn in the basement.  He went down to look.  He determined that there might in fact be a grease trap out past the house, and that would mean a near-impossible clog to fix.  He recommended re-piping.  As he showed this to me, the elbow pipe that took the entire mess outside chose that exact moment to rust through entirely.  Drip.  Drip.  Drip.

It was late, and we called it a day because we couldn't reach my uncle for important information, and I did my dishes in tubs, throwing the water outside.  The next day my uncle called and said that there was no grease trap, because they had previously taken it out, and he had found the work order that said so.  They should be calling me soon.

I hadn't heard from them by Thursday, so I called them.  They apparently had no clue that they were supposed to be in touch.  They could come in the next day.  So that was it.  After darn near three weeks of barely being able to wash dishes, after hours of trying to soldier through my own plumbing, I got it all fixed.

Throughout all of this, my cats watched as if I was doing magic.  They thought it was possibly one of the best things I had ever done for their entertainment.  Since then, they have become plumbing enthusiasts.  Every time water is running, it requires their inspection; every time I mess with the sink, they come to see if I am going to do magic again.  It's... actually kind of creepy.

My bathroom sink has pretty much stopped draining.  I went for the industrial acid cleaner this time, but have not yet had the heart to use it.  I am not sure if I am ready for war again.

When Food Was Sad, Pt. 2

Last entry, we explored the surface of Recipes, Party Plans, and Garnishes, and the somewhat horrifying period of food it comes from.  Here follows party food that I'm pretty sure should not grace any party table whatsoever.

It was pretty much like this all the time.

Now again, in all fairness, when I said last time that postwar, we went crazy for three decades with food, I have to contrast that with the world surrounding it (you may be hearing a lot about that world, since my reading list and hopefully thesis are all postwar-centric) and why the insanity seemed like a good idea at the time.  Shit was nuts then, guys.  We were living in the World of Tomorrow while simultaneously wondering if The Bomb would obliterate us all.  We thought in-the-wall stoves were good ideas, and that having a phone in the kitchen was a sort of ultimate luxury (you learn so many things from MST3K), and that maybe soon we would have robots that actually made our lives better.  We were rocking out to Cab Calloway and Ella Fitzgerald and if I've learned anything from my new postwar-hits Pandora station, that music makes you feel like bouncing around the kitchen in a big dress and getting stuff done.  What I'm saying is that the food wasn't an isolated thing.

That doesn't mean that some of it was not downright inexcusable.

Without further preamble, the contents:  We are mostly safe in the appetizers section, although there are some selections that seem to be there for the hostess who doesn't give a crap and doesn't particularly want her guests to come back.  An example of this is "Cucumber Pickle and Cheese Appetizer," which asks that you scoop out the centers of large, firm pickle halves and fill them with "snappy yellow cheese spread" and cut them into half-inch thick slices.  This and an unhealthy fixation on Roquefort are an excellent reason to skip to the end of the appetizers.

There is an entire section on garnishes, which I find alternately charming and horrifying.  There's directions for making geese out of small yellow summer squash, which is charming, and also directions for using china colonial dolls, sticking them to egg plants with toothpicks through the holes in their waists, and fashioning a lettuce dress for them, which I'm pretty sure has been added to my subconscious's nightmare fuel.

The "Meats and Poultry" section is where things really start to get exciting.  There's almost a whole page at the beginning on preparing brains, curried, cutlets, and with mushroom sauce.  Mmm, gray matter!  There's the timidly flavored chicken curry with generic curry powder, Worcestershire sauce, and apples, which you make "Indian" in this way:

"put in a large bowl, on buffet, next to a large bowl of dry, fluffy rice.  Around this, have small bowls containing following condiments; grated Parmesan cheese, grated ham, grated toasted peanuts, grated cocoanut, raisins, crumbled, crisp, breakfast bacon, Chinese noodles, fried onion rings, English chutney and crumbled sardines (optional).  Guests serve themselves to a large portion of rice, generously covered with curried chicken and a spoonful of each of the condiments.  This is, of course, a complete meal."

I don't know about the rest of you, but I sit there imagining a hopeful and naive hostess, perhaps holding a theme party, serving this to people who have eaten real curry.  "Oh, why didn't you put any fried onion rings or Parmesan on your curry?  It's supposed to have everything, that's what makes it Indian.  Well, except the sardines.  Those are optional."

Then we get into the obsession with gelatin molds.  Imagine taking perfectly good food, and then thinking it would be so much better if it were contained in a massive, quivering shape.  Imagine doing that once, and thinking it was a good enough idea to do it again.  And again.  Get creative with it - almost any food can be subjugated to your jello whims!  Then read the following list, and admit that you never would have gotten this creative:

Chicken curry mold, jellied chicken, chicken-vegetable molded salad, crab meat salad molded, fish molded in cucumber aspic lake "pond lily garnish," frosty salad rings (I interject here to note that these contain lime gelatin, horse-radish, lemon juice, and cottage cheese, and that's it), lamb mold, molded lobster salad, pineapple cheese salad, sweetbreads and asparagus ring, jellied tongue.

You may go wash your brain now.