Home Care Update: Sinks & Drains

If by chance you decide to make refried beans and you put dried pinto beans in a pot to soak overnight, then forget them - because you work and your kids are leaving for college and you're having a huge garage sale- and you forget them for maybe like, five days, and then you notice your kitchen stinks and you remember the beans and you're like "Ohmygosh! I have rotting beans in my kitchen!" and in a flurry of non-thinking, you decide to try and grind them up in your disposal, you need to know that in all cases, in all homes, in all states of the Union - and here comes the salient tip - this will not work.

Why do I know this? I know this because when after five days of home plumbing repair attempts, I called Mike from Freedom Plumbing and he said, "Refried beans and rice, that's sort of out of my league and something for the drain experts."

A few modest observations:
#1 I had no idea there was a difference between a plumber and a drain expert. 

#2 It's true that you cannot grind up refried beans in your disposal but it's a great way to do several other things, like practice your sink unclogging skills, ponder if you're comfortable using a bathroom plunger in the kitchen, track down your entire set of plumbing tools which consists of a roll of strange white tape and a special wrench, clean out under your sink and ultimately, and you knew this was coming, spend $80 with a drain unclogging expert. 

So the week unfolds sort of like this. You realize as you are grinding your stinky beans that this is a horrible idea as you listen to your disposal change tones with each wad of beans you push down. Facing your stupidity, you watch both your sinks fill and stay filled with brown, grainy bean-water.  After several days of various home plumbing experiments with your moderately good-tempered spouse, trips to the hardware store and enough Draino to toxify the entire Spokane River watershed, you finally decide to face your ineptitude and call the plumber.  His magnet is on your fridge from the last time he came to fix whatever large object you pushed down a tiny drain pipe, and so you call him and this is the part where he mentions in a roundabout way that I'm now in a special Stupid Customer category and he's busy for a few years so try this other guy. With your remaining shred of adult self-esteem, you contact the drain guy, the expert, and you wait.

Donny the Drain Expert comes and somewhat anticlimactically, uses a fairly giant machine to unclog your drain. It is loud and there is quite a bit of vibrating and it's a bit more energy than the kitchen is used to seeing. It's very mechanical. There is a small bit of drama at the end ("How did it go, Donny? Well....") that involved a 90-degree pipe turn that was tricky but in the end, he was reassured that all was well.

As these things go, you write your check while Donny knowingly reminds you - in a way only people with real skills and uniforms can - of the basic facts most people are ignorant of regarding proper drain care: You really shouldn't ever actually use your disposal ("Your pipes are rusting from the inside out so that food, you know, it just grabs onto those pipes and sticks), you should never use real tools on your pipes ("These plastic pipes, they'll snap, just snap, if you use a wrench on them"), a general age prediction regarding your pipes ("These here are about 47, maybe 48 years old, solid W9221 galvanized steel... blah blah more incomprehensible metal and pipe facts") and finally, an earnest request not touch or mess with your pipes again as most Americans misplaced their handy-person skills somewhere in the vicinity of the iPhone charger.

So really, you can go ahead and give this a whirl if your weekend seems sort of sparse, if you need a burst of handy-man and handy-woman activity. For me, I am quite happy with a clean, pleasant smelling kitchen and my can of Western Family Refried Beans.