I'm a Potato Head

My sink is responsible for marital strife in our home. Tuesday night it happened for the second time. And it's all the sink's fault. Really.

Here is what happened the first time. It all started when we had our countertops replaced. Hubby was out of town, and left me in charge of "supervising" the contractors. And I ask, doesn't he know better? It took a couple of days to replace the countertops, and meanwhile our sink was out of commission, which meant no water to rinse dishes. Perfect reason to run the dishwasher. To me, anyway.

Hubby called to check in. I relayed that I had noticed the floor molding was swollen in the room next to the kitchen. I wonder if those silly contractors busted a pipe in the wall, Hubby. Could we have water in the wall?

Did you run the dishwasher?

Of course I did. Where else was I going to do the dishes without any water available at the sink?

When you ran the dishwasher didn't you realize that it should have been connected to the sink in order to run?!? When we go to sell this house we have to replace the floor molding now. People may ask about water damage to our home. When you ran the dishwasher, the sink was disconnected. So all of that water had to go somewhere. And R., it went right to the wall.

Oops.

And then there was Tuesday night. I know I must not be the only person that has used the garbage disposal for potato peelings. Show me some love someone, somewhere, and tell me you have done it, too. I call Hubby up to let him know a catastrophe has ensued.

Both sides of the double sink in the kitchen are clogged. I mean, I just used the sink, and it drained just fine! Not two minutes later it totally backed up on me! And when I use the garbage disposal, it makes this gigantic water funnel, aims water straight at my face, and shoots in the air!

Now being the sweet husband that he is, he continues to give me the benefit of the doubt:

Oh, it's probably the traps. We need to have a professional come out and clean out our traps so our plumbing will work better.

When he gets home he tests the sink. But now, the sink totally isn't draining and we have yuck brown water in both sinks.

Did you put the potato peels down the disposal?!?

Uh yeah-ah. I do that all of the time. And besides, I cleaned out the drain once the garbage disposal started spewing water in my face..so it couldn't be the potatoes.

Next we call the plumber. Yeah, can't come over today. He talks to Hubby, though, and tells him how to use secret Plumber Powers to get the sink to drain. And we don't even know this SuperHero Plumber. So Hubby follows all of his directions and rips out every pipe under the sink. Next he uses the snake tool to get into all of those pipes. (A snake tool is a long wiry thing several feet long with a hook on the end of it. I learned about snake tools when Son1 flushed my deoderant down the toilet last year.) What does he find with the snake tool? Huge potato slices wedged deep into these pipes. And I see him huffing and puffing...and I start to worry because I know what happened to The Three Little Pigs when that wolf huffed and puffed. And he snaked and he snaked. But those crazy pipes still contained potato peelings. Next he disassembled every pipe. Then he made a trip to the garage for the Shop Vac. He sat and vacuumed the inside of every pipe that had potato peelings inside until they were all sucked dry. After much huffing, puffing, snaking, and vacuuming, the pipes were reassembled. Hubby reconnected the plumbing and was seriously irritated. But that man gets over it quick. I will have you know that ten minutes later he made filet mignon for me for dinner. Even if I am a potato head.