Sink Drains and Vacuums

Being a husband is very rewarding.  You get to watch your wife get excited about life and see your kids grow under her care which makes you excited and thankful to God for giving such a woman to you.  Then there are there are the jaw-dropping moments, some of which you handle well and others not so much.

Earlier this week I was cleaning up the kitchen while YB was giving the kids a bath.  I don't quite remember why but it felt like a pretty long day which I was hoping to declare over in short order.  "Not a problem", I thought as I started rinsing dishes before stacking the dishwasher.  Then the drain in the kitchen sink backed up.

I know all about our kitchen sink drain.  I've had it apart twice since we moved in.  The left side goes straight down to the J-Pipe.  This vertical drop is joined by the garbage disposal discharge from the right side which also supplies the waste water from the dishwasher.  Pretty easy to grasp.  I'm super happy there's an access point after the J-Pipe to snake out clogs.

This time, though, was different from the rest.  There was no clog after the J-Pipe, and the plunger didn't force the issue along either (though I did get sprayed by the pressurized back lash...not fun).  I was already upset there was even a clog so knowing I had no snake or cheep de-cloggerizer plastic strip thing from Walmart added salt to the wound.  It would be another half hour or hour with traffic before I would return home with one.  But instead of storming off to the store I decided to take the drain apart a little more.

The J-Pipe was bracketed together (don't know if I'm saying that right) in such a way that allowed me to loosen it...a nice feature.  After loosening both wing nut/bolt things, pulling the pipe off and allowing the gallon of water stopped up to drain into my tupperware-made-bucket, I found the culprit of the clog.  It wasn't rice.  It wasn't potato skins that hadn't been completely ground up by the garbage disposal.  "It" was actually two things.  The first was something that should have gone down the drain with no issue, something that looked like spinach.  The second was the one that stunned me, which was three things...three clear plastic knives.  I don't know how they got into the drain, but they did.

Jump forward a few days to this afternoon, well evening more realistically.  Again, the kids are in the bath tub and I am vacuuming the house.  All is going well except I notice the vacuum sounds like it is working really hard.  It is relatively new and still has a fair amount of suction so I don't pay it much attention until it is unable to pick up the little things.  This vacuum is one of Walmart's clearance model from last year.  It replaced the one I bought when I moved into my first apartment (read, the back of someone's garage) 9 years ago.  Our new one is awesome.  I love vacuuming with it.  But heaven help you if you have a clog.

I determined the clog was after the brushes but before the discharge to the main tank.  Okay...that means the entire front plastic hood has to come off which can only be done by unscrewing four screws.  Out comes the tool kit.  Off comes the cover.  And out comes this monstrosity.  All I could say was, "Holy cow".

I call it "Vacuum Barf".