The Easter Incident(s) of 2018 Part II

             I can say, with a bizarre form of joy, that not every incident that occurred on Easter had an injury attached to it. Well, not a physical one requiring a medical professional. Wade went on a path of destruction in his gentle and methodical manner. These incidents began as we were leaving the house to go to the “Bakery Store.”

            The first incident involved a carpet with a rubber bottom being tossed, nonchalantly into our hard-working front load washing machine. More on that later.

The second incident involved the light fixture in our bedroom. Two of the three absurdly small halogen lightbulbs had burned out. I had taken pictures of the inside of the fixture with the intention of zooming in on the lightbulbs to find a number or some other identifying mark. Not satisfied with my photography skills, Wade marched upstairs and went about the grim business of finishing a task I was too short to complete.

A few minutes later he came downstairs with one of the bulbs in his pocket. We went to the car and were on our way. As I came up on the first set of lights from our house, he casually mentioned that we should go to Home Depot first.

“Why?” I asked, staring at the red light.

“To see if we can get some bulbs and maybe a replacement bowl for the light fixture in our room.”

“Why would we need a replacement bowl?” I asked, all confused.

“I started removing the first two nuts and forgot the third one. It seemed stuck so I pulled harder and part of it snapped off. I think I can glue it back together.” I briefly looked at him. He had a hopeful look on his face. I can’t imagine that my facial expression was a hopeful one. Mildly annoyed, I continued our journey for groceries. And we all know what happened there. Should’ve gone to Home Depot.

After the head trauma drama, we went home and as I had suspected, the washer was amiss. An error code was displayed and an occasional sad song was chimed. I’m not sure what the code meant, but the lack of water draining from the tub was a sign. The sad, sodden carpet was crumpled in a shallow pool. I felt my rage rising. I pushed it down. I’m sure this is how volcanos build up and erupt. I was pretty sure there was some sort of pump issue, considering the whirring sound. I was wrong.

After pulling the plug off of the drain and allowing some water to flow into our trusty green bucket, I pulled the trap out. A clot of mud and rubber greeted me. Before proceeding, I watched a YouTube video on how to deal with a clogged washing machine drain. I stopped the video at the point of pulling off the front panel. The pump, I found, was still in good shape and I could freely turn the spinny mechanism thingy. Defeated, slightly water logged and the dryer vent annihilated, we called it a night.

The next day, we tried again. We bailed the tub out and used a drain wand to clean out as much debris as possible. I cleaned the extremely blocked front drain by the door with Q-Tips and was rather disgusted by the status of the inside of the seal between the door and tub. Satisfied that we had made progress, we turned the washer on and attempted to run a Pure cycle (the function that is used to disinfect the washer) to clean it out. My heart sang as the tub moved freely and the water flowed in. I photographed the water and sent it over to my BFF as a badge of honour that I fixed something. He seemed unimpressed.

I went off to watch Wade attempt to Krazy Glue our wounded light fixture back together. It was my first look at the state of the Georgian Bowl. It had become an arts and crafts project reminiscent of a child trying to glue his mom’s favorite mug back together. There were small pieces missing and I was skeptical that it would have a fulfilling life in a lighting capacity. There was also the concern that it wouldn’t stay mounted on the chandelier mount. Troubled by the thought of a 3:00am wake-up call a’ la plummeting fixture fragments, I pulled up Lowes.ca. My search for a new Georgian Bowl was fruitless. As I was giving up, I heard the whirring of the washer pump again. No dice on the draining. I had failed to show off my mad plumbing skills, which I had so proudly displayed during my time plunging our various toilets.

We made the decision to go to a Lowes in search of light bulbs, a dryer vent and some sort of way to clear the washer. With our little head injury patient safely stowed in a car cart, we were off. The first stop was at the light bulbs. We picked out the style that was in the old chandelier. I had to use the light on my phone combined with creative squinting to figure out which style it was. Bifocals be damned! I am not there yet.

Then we wheeled over to the dryer vents and picked out a shiny new one. While we were standing in the aisle pondering six feet or eight, I got an idea. A horrible awful idea.

“What if we tried to attack the clog from the drain side?”

“Huh?” Wade was half listening to my genius plan.

“Like get a hose or something.”

“Maybe.”

We rounded the corner of the plumbing aisle as he contemplated and there on the clearance shelf, with a light as though from heaven and perhaps an angel singing, was the very hose I had envisioned. The price was right, $0.14 per foot for ten feet. I happily placed it in the cart next to our new eight feet of uncrushed dryer vent.

“Might as well check out the lights to see if maybe they have replacement bowls,” I said to my still moderately distracted husband.

We walked into the lighting area and were greeted with several new options, which seemed like better options than our old banged up chandelier. After being assured by the lighting guy that there were no replacement Georgian Bowls, I made the executive decision to look for a new lighting fixture. We picked one which had a steam punk feel with a fan and what appeared to be anal beads. Satisfied with visions of laying under a fan on hot summer nights, I placed our new light fixture in the cart. We then we chose new light bulbs and headed home with a renewed sense of determination.

On our arrival, the washer tub had a lot of water in it from our Pure Cycle attempt. Wade cut the tubing and I grabbed the water jug and funnel from the kitchen. Operation Clog Removal was in full effect. The drain was removed, as was the trap. The trusty green bucket was positioned under the drain in the pedestal drawer. Wade threaded the tubing through the trap housing into the drain pipe. I poured the water in, beer bong style, and watched a little water trickle out of the drain. Another idea struck me, perhaps a bit of air could help clear the drain. I filled my lungs, wrapped my mouth around the clean end of the tube and blew with most of my might. A small blob of rubber and mud flowed out of the trap. We repeated the water bong step.

Intrigued by my ingenuity, and blowing technique, Wade decided to prove that his lung capacity far exceeded mine. He drew in a breath that would put King Triton to shame and blew. What happened next was unexpected and distressing to say the least.

An enormous wad of rubber and mud flowed out of the washer. Closely followed by, you guessed it, ALL of the water from the tub.

“FUCK!” I shouted, completely forgetting the presence of my impressionable child. We watched helplessly as our trusty green bucket filled, then overflowed. The large pedestal drawer began to fill. I panicked. I began to run around looking for the dog towels. (If you have a dog, you understand). I ran upstairs while Wade calmly took the bucket to the bathroom and emptied it. I had visions of a repeat of the incident which required a new paint job on the basement ceiling, considering the proximity of the heating vent to the flow of water. I ran back downstairs. I was empty handed and swearing enough to not only provide my child with an overabundance of new words for the playground in the fall but also make a longshoreman blush. I located the towels in question and the clean-up began. Thankfully, whoever tiled the laundry room managed to have the floor slope away from the vent.

Ironically, there was mop bucket less than six feet from the chaos that occurred in the laundry room. Neither of us had thought to retrieve it. Laundry chaos completed, the washer was back in business. The first load was the dog towels. The next task, because home improvement is fun, was the new light. Thankfully, nothing was broken or electrocuted in the process of hanging the new light. Wade did cut himself, but not bad enough for a second trip to the hospital.

On a sad note, the anal beads did not work with the vaulted ceiling. The light looks a thousand times less tacky than it looked on the box and subsequent photo I had posted on Facebook. But, it’s up and finally we can shed light from six LED bulbs instead of three halogens. Bonus, the new light came with a remote.