Cleaning or Plumbing: You Make the Call

Most men feel that they cannot escape spring cleaning. It shouldn't be like that though. We have rights too!

As we gradually become accustomed to the fact that the spring season is upon us, we men are getting that twitch. It is the same twitch that plagues us every year when the women start mentioning spring cleaning and we start making excuses. More often than not, however, our excuses don’t work and we get sucked into the frenzy like a torpedo in a giant toilet.

Now, when I say “we”, I am of course referring to those men that are bound to a woman. Being that I live alone, spring cleaning consists of washing my sheets. And I don't event do that myself. The people at the Laundromat are happy enough to do it in exchange for a few dollars. But that is not the point. “We” (again, not me) don’t use Laundromats. “We” have “our” (same implication) sheets cleaned at home.

Anyways, a torpedo in a toilet is bad news. I’d call a plumber. But “you” shouldn’t! This is your chance to evade spring cleaning! You will become a plumber this spring! While everyone is making things nice and pretty, you will learn about sewage and pipes. Lead pipes! Which poison your water! Boy, isn’t this exciting?

Ok, the first thing you need to know about plumbing is how water works. Water is usually a clear, odorless substance, primarily a liquid, which flows freely. However, as a plumber, this is not the water you will see. The water we will learn about is “plumbing water”, a dark, dirty, smelly goo, that must be forced through pipes by means of plungers and snakes (mechanical plumbers’ snakes, that is – we’ll deal with the other kind soon).

When dealing with water, you always want to wear gloves. I suggest strong rubber gloves with a good grip. These make it easier to remove the larger, solid pieces of water. A good beginners' plumbing exercise is to take a large bucket of plumbing water, then with your gloves remove as many solid pieces as you can. If you are good enough, you will be able to suck this water through a drinking straw. Personally, I wouldn't, though. It's just not my taste.

The next thing you must learn about is pipes. Pipes are what get clogged in order to prevent water from reaching its destination. But before you start ripping out all the pipes in your house, let me remind you that pipes also prevent water from reaching unwanted destinations, such as your brand new sofa. There is no need to practice any exercises with pipes, as the drinking straw in the previous exercise should have taught you all you need to know.

Now we come to the most crucial part of our crash-course on plumbing: Stuffed toilets. This is an area of great mystery, mainly because there is no way to know what the toilet is stuffed with. There are two types of stuffed toilets, your slow-flusher and your no-flusher. The latter one is also known as the up-chucker. In the case of a slow-flusher, all that’s required is a temporary fix. This can be accomplished quite simply by plunging the toilet with a plunger (rubber end down) several times.

After several fixes of a slow-flusher ($149 per incident), the toilet will most likely regress to a no-flusher. This is probably one of the most traumatic experiences for a toilet owner, and as a professional plumber, you should calm everyone down by bending over the toilet and allowing the back of your pants to drop several inches. A no-flusher can have two stages. The first stage, known as “Flush One” is when the water level in the toilet reaches the top of the bowl and does not fall. Not all no-flushers enter this stage; some go straight to the next stage, known as “The Over-Abundance”. This is when all the water in the bowl spills out over the bathroom floor, creating quite a mess (if your wife or girlfriend is still doing spring cleaning, invite them in to take care of this). In any case, your job is now to get the water back where it belongs, namely, in the pipes. This is where the plumbers’ snake comes in handy. Lower the coil into the toilet, turn the handle several times, and pull it out. What happens? Send me an email letting me know – I have never tried this.

About the Author

Aaron currently works as a software/web developer and writes in his free time. He also runs a growing web-based discussion forum at http://www.chitchatforums.com." target="_blank">http://www.chitchatforums.com. His personal work is on display at http://www.spetnik.com." target="_blank">http://www.spetnik.com.

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