Thursday, August 13, 2009

The Plunger Brigade

This past weekend The Hubster and I had some of his family down to our house for a BBQ. His brother Kai and sister-in-law Becky brought their kids, Nika and Liam. Kjell's cousin Chelsea, her husband Josh, and Kjell's aunt Juli were down here visiting from Alaska, so they all came too. We were so excited to have them down to our new place and show it off.

It was the perfect day for it too... Not too hot, nor too chilly, just perfect. We'd been up early doing some yard work and making the yard look somewhat presentable. We'd gone to the grocery store to get hotdogs and hamburgers, we bought a cute little patio set so we'd have plenty of seating, I was baking some amazing white chocolate chip-cranberry-oatmeal cookies (yum!), and the day was turning out wonderfully. The house was clean, our bed made, dogs fed and running around outside. I found myself reflecting on the day so far thinking, "What could possibly go wrong?"

If this were a sitcom, or an episode of the Flintstones, that's when you would have heard that sound effect. You know the one I'm talking about, they use it every time something goes wrong, or someone is dissappointed.

"Wah, wah, waaaaaaaah"

Doesn't translate well to the written word, but hopefully you get the idea.

Anywho, almost as quickly as the thought crossed my mind, things began to unravel. Rapidly.

I'd been tearing up lettuce for the hamburgers, and I stuffed a couple leaves of it down the disposal. It's lettuce, and it's only a couple of pieces, so I shoved it in, turned on the water, and flipped the disposal switch. I'm sitting there watching the disposal munch up the lettuce, and all seemed fine until I noticed that the sink was not draining. Hmm, that's weird? And THEN I notice that the other side of the sink is filling up. And by this time, I realize that it's not just water that's filling up the sinks. It is water mixed with teeny tiny shreds of lettuce, and other food stuffs that were in the disposal.

Yeah, pretty nasty.

So I yell out to The Hubster, "Babe! The disposal isn't working!"

Him: "What do you mean it's not working?"

Me: "It's not working! I put some lettuce down there, and now it's all coming back up."

Him: "Well, did you fill it too full?" (By this point he's in the kitchen, staring at it with me.)

Me: *Blink. Blink blink* "I'm going to pretend you didn't just ask me that. I've used a disposal in the past, dear. This isn't because of the lettuce."

And that's as far as I'm going to go in our conversation, because what happened after that included a lot of cussing, and quite frankly the whole thing was a blur. See, all of this happened within 45 minutes of everyone showing up. By this time, The Hubster had lost one of the screws and bolts that came with the patio set, so he's freaking out about how there has to be some sort of ghost following him around playing mean tricks on him, stealing his stuff and putting it back later, RIGHT WHERE HE HAD LOOKED A MILLION TIMES. Also, I had a pile of dishes that I couldn't do because of our lettuce filled sink, Kjell still had to shower, and now I was off to the store to get some Extra Strength Drano. I have no idea how we managed to pull ourselves together, but we did.

So everyone showed up, we barbeque'd and ate and visited. The kids played in the backyard with the dogs, and the evening was coming to an end. Everyone was getting ready to leave, and just when I thought we had pulled it off, Kai pulls me aside.

"I think Nika plugged up your toilet. Do you have a plunger?"

It just so happened that we didn't have a plunger. Yet. I should have grabbed one of those when I was getting the Drano (that didn't work, by the way).

What could I do but laugh it off? Other than the house stuff the day had gone pretty well, and there was nothing for us to do but go and get a plunger. Shit happens, right? Oh, and clogged toilets happen all the time too, it turns out. No big deal, especially when it's Kjell doing the plunging and not me :)

Despite the "Ugh-ness" of the whole situation with the disposal and the toilet, I can't help but look at it and feel kinda proud. We're homeowners and this stuff happens all the time! And did we handle it? Yes! Is the clogged sink unclogged? Yes! Is our toilet unclogged? Yes! Did people eat good food and have fun? Yes!

Let's just see how proud we are when something happens that we can't handle with a plunger :)

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