Brusha Brusha

I'd like to say that my third wine class was a lovely, relaxing evening.

However, given that I was ripping my hair out approximately 90 minutes before the class, I was barely down to a slow simmer when Ted started talking. (He coincidentally got a haircut, by the way, from someone who is Not His Friend. Or maybe it IS a friend and he doesn't want to hurt his/ her feelings, but he ended up with a bad 'do.)

Yesterday afternoon I was cleaning because I am planning on having a few friends over in the near future - I was scrubbing the floor of my bathroom/laundry room (alternating between a little fingernail-brush sort of scrubber and a regular sponge, because lint and clouds of hairspray make a BAD combination of sticky dirt). I was being such a domestic goddess. It's rare. I cook, do laundry, keep the bill collectors away, and the Mr does things like floors and lawns and driveways. It's all good. But I hate washing floors and apparently I'm not good at it. The water got dirty, and so I went to dump it and thought, Oh, I'll put it in the toilet, not my nice clean sink.

As the water was rushing out of the washbasin I remembered THE BRUSH. I made a vain attempt to grab it (oh gross, gross, I put my hand in a toilet, now I have to cut it off.... at least I had JUST cleaned the toilet a few minutes before..... ) but the force of the water I was pouring into the john carried that sucker right out of the bowl. I didn't even FLUSH the darn thing!

Feck, as Shamus would say. Feck Feck Feck Feck Feck!!!

So... did the brush go ALL the way down, or was it lodged somewhere in that bottom part of the can? The magic question. I came up with the brilliant idea of crumpling up a handful of toilet paper (CLEAN, THANK YOU FOR ASKING) and testing to see if it would go bye-bye when I flush.

There is nothing more disheartening than seeing the water level in a bowl go UP and not DOWN.

I tried fishing, first with a coat hanger and then with Mr. Carly's snake. The guy's got all sorts of tools but he wasn't around to help this time and since I had that wine class on the agenda I had to get this thing "going" if you will. Since I didn't really know what I was doing I gave up and called the plumber who fixed my sink last week. (They tripped over a pot of gold, huh?) He happily advised me he would be there first thing in the morning. Feck! At least we have another bathroom. Then Mr. Carly got home and discovered that the other bathroom had that same magical "water-going-up up up and not away" action going on.

AT this point, tears, more cussing, and phone calls to other plumbers ensued. Mr C was pretty cool about it despite the fact that HE thought I had put one of those big shower poof sponge things down the drain. Mine happens to have a HANDLE about a foot and a half long, so I was trying to figure out how the HELL he could think that I had flushed something like that in the first place. I'm afraid I got quite prissy at that point.

So after a fair amount of commotion Mr C sent me off to the wine class and stayed home alone to meet the plumber. (Probably so they could laugh at me, although he covered that up pretty well because he said "Well, at least one of us should go"... yeah, that's it. Good answer!) Two hours and $225 later the problem was resolved. Apparently the solution was taking things apart and using more tools and pushing that damn little brush out to the street. Don't ask me.

This one will go in my List of Reasons Why I Can't Be Martha's Apprentice. Not a good thing.

Wine... red wine... the Malbec was very good. But I didn't care for one of the others we tried, nor one of the cheeses. (Stinky cheese that smelled like tiny sweaty baby feet that have been cooped up in those fuzzy foot pajamas all night. Yuck!) When I get my act together I'll share more details.


P.S. Does anyone but me see a potential problem in putting Michael Jacskson on the PEDIATRIC ward??? Bueller? Anyone??