Hick and I are having a difference of opinion. Surprise, surprise.
He believes that the best tool for unclogging a toilet is a pot of hot water. You would think that with two teenage boys in the household, Hick would have had plenty of time and opportunity to research this issue fully. Yet he always falls back on his old stand-by: the pot of hot water.
I disagree. An industrial-strength plunger should be the tool of choice. Not one of those flimsy red Dollar Store plungers, that turn inside-out on the first little jab. I'm talking about a heavy-duty thick black plunger, perhaps ordered from a plumbing supply catalog.
To support my argument, I present the following facts:
Number One: I have never seen a plumber (in real life or in fiction) hike up his pants, scratch his head, and say, "Well, I've got to resort to my secret weapon, The Hot Water Pot." And then amble (they're paid by the hour, you know) back to his panel van parked at the curb, select a faithful copper-bottom from the pan rack hanging from its ceiling, fire up his wood-burning stove, empty two gallon plastic jugs of water into the pot, heat it up, and stroll back to the house. Several times.
Number Two: (heh, heh, number two, heh, heh, get it?) In my family home, my dad used a plunger. Or a snake. Or an old, unbent wire coat hanger.
Number Three: The clogging material, ahem, that Hick is trying to clear from the pipes is not what I would call dissolvable. Even in hot water. It's not like we're making gelatin here.
Hick begs to differ. Of course plumbers don't use this most effective method of unclogging stubborn blockages! They make money by the hour. Why would they use the simple method of a pot of hot water when they can fiddle around and take the entire toilet apart? Besides, you might see them using hot water, and then you would never call them again. There goes business. Down the drain. (That was my part. Hick was born without a funny bone.)
Hick believes my dad was just old-fashioned and unimaginative. He didn't understand that a plumber's snake can't bend around the angles needed to probe the nether regions of a toilet. I beg to differ on this one, because my dad had a snake light, and that thing bent seven ways to Sunday. In fact, I think that's how it got its name, snake. So it only stands to reason that a plumber's snake is flexible.
Hick says that of course hot water will dissolve the blockage. He disagrees that it's the force of the water that moves the clog along, and that a pot of cold water would work just as well to supply extra pressure. In my opinion, Hick needs to do an expose on Drano, because those folks would have you believe that hot water can not even dissolve a grease clog.
Next cat out of the bag, Hick will be patenting his hot water treatment in the health care arena. Surely a few injections of hot water can dissolve those fatty artery deposits.
6 comments:
I can envision it: a new product called "Plumbers' Secret." It will guarantee to unclog pipes. And what will it be? A large bottle of water. The directions for use? Heat the contents of the bottle and pour down the drain.
I am going to market it, and then retire on the profits I make.
I can't make fun of Hick because I employ the use of hot and cold water as medical treatments. Unless there's blood involved. But wait, I think that calls for cold water. It's cheap and ineffective enough that no one bothers you with their ailments. Hey, is Hick trying to get out of plumbing duties?
Hey if hot water worked, with all this tea and coffee I drink, I'd never be backed up. I'm not buying it either.
Sioux,
Maybe you will use some of those profits to invest in my proposed handbasket factory. I'm hoping your product will have an exposed butt crack on the label.
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Tammy,
Hick has very few duties, and routinely tries to pawn them off like a long-in-the-tooth Tom Sawyer. Those duties include mowing the front field when it grows higher than a Beagle's eye, taking the vehicles for inspection and repair, unclogging toilets, cleaning up vomit, changing the filter in the air conditioner/furnace, and disposing of creatures which find their way into the house.
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Linda,
Thank you for the support. Though you have provided, perhaps, more information than necessary.
This reminds me of a story told by Mary Hunt (Cheapskate Monthly). She recounted that she was going to be on a TV show (I think it was Oprah) to talk about cheap ways to do household chores. Among them was unstopping a clogged sink/toilet. She had a container of baking soda and one of vinegar which she used for demonstration purposes on the show.
Rather than taking them home on a plane, she just dumped the baking soda in the toilet and flushed.
She then dumped the vinegar in and flushed.
After a few minutes, there what a HUGE explosion all over the place!
She called housekeeping and as the guy was cleaning up the mess, she was apologizing profusely.
The guy turned to her and said, "lady, I don't know what you did, but that cleared a clog that I have been trying to clear for over a YEAR!!!!"
I would go with the snake--or the baking soda and vinegar. ;-D
PS Hick cleans up vomit????
labbie,
I guess a toilet is just one big inverted science experiment volcano.
Hick is a master of regurgitation removal. Ever since Genius was an infant, projectile vomiting sour milk across the carpet. He doesn't even gag! He's quite a catch.
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