Flushing 2020

2020 has not been very good to me.

Nor has it been good to anybody I know.

In addition to the pandemic which is driving us all stir crazy, but has thankfully reunited my family under one roof, there are other first world problems that all seem to cascade upon one another.

Last week, the TV in my man cave lost its signal -- the dreaded 771 signal loss message. It took me 10 calls and 10 laborious journeys through the Directv phone tree in order to reach Wendell. A conscientious DTV employee who had been on the job for more than 35 years. He walked me through the steps to re-jig my satellite connection.

Effectively going offline from the tuner that was out of whack and switching over to the tuner that was still functioning. Moreover, he set me up with an emergency appointment with a DTV technician who brought a new box and a new cable line to run from the dish to my receiver.

In short, after 10 days, I now have a fully functional TV in my office. Sadly, there's still nothing good on TV.

But wait, there's more.

Yesterday the kitchen sink would not drain. When it did drain it went right into the smaller sink with the garbage disposal. (BTW, the picture above is stock and not my kitchen sink. Mine is much more cluttered making the P-trap incredibly inaccessible.)

And so I did what my father would have done. I drank a cup of coffee, rounded up some tools from the garage, and started disassembling. Naturally the connections on my two inch PVC pipes are not held together by easy to turn plastics rings, as seen above. No, mine are strapped together by metal mesh secured by hard to reach, hard to turn metal clamps.

Nevertheless, I persisted.

I grabbed my handy dandy Leatherman all purpose tool and carefully loosened the clamps. I jimmied the trap off and exposed the main two inch pipe that exits the kitchen sinks and drains to the mainline under the house.

Then I reached for my toilet auger, best tool I ever bought. I jammed the spirally end into the opening and started pumping the handle so that it uncoiled all the way to its destination. When I pulled it back up it was caked in brown and black sludge, remnants of meals gone by, last Thanksgiving, our last summer BBQ and probably some cake from my daughter's 11th birthday.

The smell, could (apologies to George Carlin) knock a buzzard off a shitwagon.

Reassembly went much smoother. And within 10 minutes it was time to test my handiwork.

BAM!

Not only was the sink draining. I even managed to get the dishwasher to run a full cycle and the dishes are clean.

It's good to know that If I never get hired for another copywriting job ever again, I have a promising future as a journeyman plumber.

I don't know about you, but I'm taking this as a sign that the worst of 2020 is behind us and that good things, shiny bright things, are on the horizon.

Also, Fuck Trump.