The day before my parents were to arrive, I decided to begin some deep-cleaning projects that should really only be started when a person has many, many days in which to make a huge mess and then slowly restore order.

But perhaps you understand the intense and gripping panic of not wanting your mother to open the door to your pantry and think, “Has my child never thrown a single thing away in her life?”

Tidying the pantry was indeed one of my projects. I began by throwing out all the expired food. (We had a bag of chia seeds that puzzled me; have I ever used chia seeds? Turns out they expired in 2016.) Then I re-ordered the shelves, so that the breakfast foods that had migrated onto three shelves were now neatly arrayed in their own breakfasty area. Then I got rid of things that I knew we weren’t going to eat, like the box of fennel seed crackers my mother-in-law donated to us earlier this fall. Then I consolidated things: two boxes of Ritz crackers could be combined into one. Two tins of oatmeal could also be combined. And we had a jar of couscous that was only a quarter full, and two boxes of only recently expired couscous that I could add to the jar. 

First, I opened the jar and gave it a sniff. We haven’t had couscous in awhile. The jar smelled distinctly stale. 

It was such a little bit of couscous. I tossed it into the sink. Then I ran the disposal, just for good measure, and moved along with my day. 

Finally, the pantry was clean and neat – so clean and neat that even my husband remarked upon it when he first saw it. But that was later. After. 

At some point, I went over to the sink to wash my hands. The water didn’t fully drain, so I pressed the switch to run the disposal. 

A geyser of couscous flecked water erupted from the non-disposal side of the sink, getting couscous and who knows what other bits of old food all over the counter, the window, the little corner draining board where we set the Scrub Daddy and dish brush. Ew.

But then… the water didn’t drain. It simply stayed in the sink. I ran the disposal some more. You need to run water while you’re running the disposal. The sinks continued to fill with couscousy water. 

At this point, I understood.

While I know (from bitter experience) that you cannot stuff potato peels, carrot peels, onion skins, celery, or other undigestible food matter into the disposal, I had forgotten that couscous is not a small dry grain that can be easily ground up by the blades of the disposal. It is a PASTA, that EXPANDS when it is wet. 

I had broken the disposal. Right before my parents were to arrive. For Thanksgiving, a holiday during which my disposal does A Lot of work. Cue hyperventilation and tears. 

Immediately, I called the plumber. In a tear-choked, panic-strained half-sob, I explained my problem and that I had guest coming the next day, please send help! The very kind dispatcher said they could put me on the schedule for tomorrow or the next day. As though there was a choice. TOMORROW, I said. 

The Scrub Daddy continued to grin up at me, taking far too much enjoyment from my pain. My sinks were unusable. Even for hand-washing. They were disgusting, the water in them cloudy, bits of food and couscous afloat. 

I opened the under-sink cabinets and that’s when I discovered the leak. Water was oozing out of one of the pipes and onto the bottom of the cabinet.

I removed everything to the counters.

Fortunately, the leak wasn’t a big one. It was just… a gentle ooze. I cleaned everything and then stuck a towel under the pipes. 

Then I wandered aimlessly around the kitchen for awhile, texting my husband. 

This is exactly the kind of text you want to receive from your spouse while you are AT WORK and can do nothing about it. Probably you will be shocked to hear this, but I may be a bit dramatic at times.

He wanted me to remove the fluid from the sink… but… HOW?

The panic was beginning to subside. A bit. So I googled. And found a video where some other poor idiot had messed up his sink and was now recording the fix for posterity and clicks. It looked… doable. Gross, but not impossible. Simple, really. You just disconnect some of the pipes from one another, clear out the clog, put everything back together, and you’re good to go.

At this point, the plumber texted me. They said something like, “We are going to try to get a plumber out to see you tomorrow if we can.” I seem to have deleted the text, so the exact wording eludes me. But it was not a confidence builder. It implied that I might be sitting here with my clogged, couscousy sinks until well past Thanksgiving.

The possibility of no plumber strengthened my resolve to Do Something myself. 

I gently tried loosening one of the joints in the pipe. The leak intensified. So I went on a search for a container for the water. My bucket didn’t fit under the pipe situation, so I located a bunch of large-ish food storage containers. Then I had a stroke of genius and discovered we had a large aluminum casserole pan (the kind in which you bake food for new moms) in the freshly tidied pantry, so I got that out and set it on the towel under the pipes. 

I turned off all the water. I unplugged the disposal and hung the cord up over the cabinet door, away from any water contact. I figured out how to separate two of the pipes from one another, very slightly, and I was able to drain the water from the sinks by holding the two sides apart. It was hard on my arms, but it really helped control the flow of water. Every so often, I would pour the contents of my aluminum pan into my bucket (it was too flimsy to hold much), and then dump the bucket in the toilet. 

Once the sinks were clear, I reconnected the water and tried running it through the pipes again. The sinks immediately filled up with water and I had to drain them again. Once re-drained, I reconnected the disposal and tried running it. The disposal seemed to be working, but again the sinks filled up. Relieved, I felt confident I was dealing with a clog and not a broken disposal. Surely unclogging a pipe would cost less to fix than replacing the disposal.

But now that I’d had luck draining the sinks, I wondered if I could do more.

Perhaps I could unclog the pipes by myself.

T

My main concern was breaking the disposal/pipes/sink more than they were also broken. So I called my father to see if he thought it was something I could tackle myself, or if I could wait for the plumber.

When you are driving at high speeds on the freeway, getting a frantic call about home plumbing repairs from your middle-aged child probably isn’t ideal. Although who knows. Maybe it was just as entertaining as an audiobook.

His first suggestion was that I use a plunger to try to push the clog along… but that didn’t work. It was clear that I needed to remove the clog directly from the pipes. Communicating by text via my mom – my dad said he thought I could do it. 

Supplies: A wrench big enough to loosen the nuts holding the joints together. A bucket or pan. Done and done. 

He had me sent pictures of the pipes to my mom, so he could figure out which way I needed to turn the nuts. (I don’t know why he wanted to be sure; I kind of thought I would try it one way and then if it didn’t work, I would try it the other way. But when you are asking your parent for plumbing guidance, you do what he tells you.) He told me which direction to turn, and I used my tool to unscrew the nuts. I have no idea if I am using the right terminology at all. I complained via text that my tool wasn’t very effective, and my dad asked for a photo of it. I sent it to him and he told me I was not using a wrench, I was using pliers. But they should probably work. 

And they did.

I got all of the nuts off the joints, I was able to clean out the clog, reattach everything, and run water through the disposal. It took me nearly THREE HOURS from clogging the sink to de-couscousing everything and putting it all back together. But I did it. 

Here’s the text I sent to my husband:

Here’s the text I sent to my mother, who, I will remind you, was a passenger in a car my father was driving, TO MY HOUSE from their home across the country, this entire time.

It is very, extremely satisfying to resolve a problem. Especially, I would wager, when you are unaccustomed to both the type of problem and the methodology necessary to resolve it. It wasn’t easy, but it was simple and the result was wildly gratifying.

And the repair has held ever since, with no additional leaks. Even through Thanksgiving.

When I picked up Carla from school that day, I was so high on my experience – gleeful! triumphant! – that I told her all about the clog and my newfound plumbing acumen. I handed her my phone so she could look at the photos as I talked.

She was delighted by the story. I spared no detail. She was an ideal audience: rapt, full of questions. She loves to help my father build and repair things, so I think she quite enjoys DIY content.

“And I fixed it! All by myself!” I concluded.

“No you didn’t,” she said. “Grandpa helped.”

Okay. Fair. 

Still looking at the photos, she said, “I have one question Mommy.”

Yes?

“Why did you use pliers instead of a wrench?”

Okay, Carla. Next time YOU can fix the clog. 

As you will recall, I introduced this little experience with a guessing game and an associated giveaway. It was so fun to read everyone’s guesses about what happened. So many of you have had similar experiences, and I feel such kinship with you all. Also: I am VERY GLAD it was not mice. 

The winner of the mystery giveaway is Gigi Rambles! Gigi, I will email you for your address. (And yes, you are not imagining that this is different than originally posted — I completely ignored the previous winner’s desire to opt out of the giveaway. Reading comprehension, folks! It’s a good thing!)