Sunday, September 5, 2010

An adventure in plumbingism

(Note: NO picture attached)
I guess this story is two weeks old now, but it deserves a go.
Basically, Saturday late morning the team that was here in Haiti with me comes and says that the toilet isn't flushing.
Anxiety was clear on their faces.
I spent the next hour and a half trying to fix the problem.
I have to say, a good plunger is well worth the money. This one (again: NO picture attached, you'll want to just take my word for it) had a crack in it. AND it didn't have one of those suction cup type things extruding from the bottom. So it was a cheap $2 plunger. And it was broken.
I put surgical gloves on and tried real hard. That failed so I got the duct tape to fix the crack in the plunger. THAT failed so I wrapped it fully (a "duct plunger" if you will). Still no success.
I had a pot of water boiled and put detergent down it. In the end the mess went down and I bleached the area.

The next morning at 6am I awoke and needed to use it. immediately afterwards I discovered my work was not complete. I got another pair of gloves, grabbed the duct plunger, and 15 (!) minutes later the problem was finally resolved. I almost screamed out a "YAH-TAH!" in celebration. Being 630am on Sunday I muted it to myself in a joyful smile and a whispered thanks & praise.
I hope I never have to do that again. :)

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