Or, How I Spent My Labor Day Weekend
Our friends from Napa stopped in to say hi on this glorious Pacific Northwest afternoon. Carolyn's sister accompanied them while her husband, Richard, went to work. That's a cause for celebration, Richard going to work, because his hours were cut from forty per week to just eight last Fall. Then he was furloughed. He's happy to be laboring this Labor Day, even though he now works only three days a week and has no benefits, and we're happy for him.
So, while Richard was busy following Louis Armstrong's advice, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vx64fSAqhI , we were busy having fun. Until one of our guests needed to use our guest bathroom. That's when we discovered that sometime during the last couple of weeks it went on strike.
It's fitting, I guess, that we discovered this on Labor Day weekend 'cause that used to be the way folks demanded change in the workplace. They went on strike. It's how we got the 40 hour week, decent pay and benefits like retirement and health plans.
I know, most of you younger folks are thinking "Huh? Is he talking about here in America? Naw - he must mean Europe or Africa - some of those socialist, commie places where everybody talks funny, We don't got nothin' like that 'round here."
Well, we used to have those things right here in this town and in yours too 'cause our great grandaddies got beaten up and killed by goons and cops in the employ of the factory owners. After enough strikers were killed, the owners finally caved. It was that or go to jail for murder.
But that was before video games, wii and streaming netflix kept us so busy we don't have time to care about our working conditions. Oh well, I'm retired now so I don't give a rat's behind and under the tail anymore myself. You guys deal with it. I'm busy trying to make sure visitors to our humble castle can relieve themselves without worrying about where I hid the mop.
I'm old enough to know just exactly how to deal with a striking toilet - use the plunger. And I have a really handy, heavy duty one laying around this joint somewhere. Not one of those cheapo plastic handled Wal*Mess things. A real honest to goodness Ace hardware one, made in another corner of China than the cheap ones. OK, you caught me - mine's a cheap one too. Just a more expensive cheap one. I don't know where to look for a great one these days; all of them are the pits.
Seems like I don't know where to look to find my expensive cheap one either. I looked everywhere it should be to no avail. I even had help from Micky - he looked in the places it should not be. The truth is, I didn't get any help from Micky at all. He couldn't find it either, and that's no help. Just co-miserating.
So, we climbed into the Guzzler Deluxe and chugged down to the Lumberbox store to buy a new one. While I was there I also picked up a bunch of rain gutter pieces that I'll put together to prevent ice from forming on the sidewalk in front of our front door, but that's a different post. I'll get to it one of these days.
Brand new plunger in hand, we faced the white porcelain fixture and with a mighty shove, stared at it with hopes the water level would lower. It didn't. I plunged again and again but all that happened was a bunch of water that was not making a mess before I started was now causing the floor to be kinda shiny. Back to the Lumberbox for a grenade or two. This piece of crap cheapo plunger I was using was just making things worse.
We found just the Howitzer we needed. A cheapo handy-dandy toilet snake, made in China and shipped all the way to my local store, for only 19.97. That's pretty cheap for a cannon, I don't care where you were raised.
Home again, bazooka in hand, we started work. I pushed the snake down the hole in the bottom of the offending bowl and started twisting. It hung up on something or another but with a doubling of the force on the handle, it gave. Two turns later, I pulled the snake back towards me. The water level started to recede, slowly at first but then explosively.
How the Devil did a washcloth wind up in the toilet? My life is filled with such mysteries.
I'd blame the mutt for that one. :o)
ReplyDeleteI'd love to do so , Jeff. But with my housekeeping skills the culprit probably looks back at me while I'm combing my hair.......
ReplyDeleteEarly in my work life, I had a job cleaning up a pizzeria/bar on Saturday and Sunday mornings. It wasn't always bad, but some days were epic. More than once the toilet went out of commission -- sometimes with extreme prejudice -- and people kept using it anyway. Gross.
ReplyDeleteOn one such occasion I worked for an half an hour to get at the blockage; my equipment included a snake, management knew its customers. I finally pulled out the blockage.
Two limes. Go figure.
Amazing the jobs we take while young. I once worked at a cotton seed mill. One of my duties required me to jump into concrete pits that contained motors which drove augers that moved ground meal from one station to another. The meal was very high in protein and flies loved to lay their eggs in the meal that drifted into the corners of the pits.
ReplyDeleteThe job? Shoveling maggots from the bottom of the pit into a front loader. I puked the first couple of times, but after that it wasn't so bad.