Treasures in the Sink

This post begins gross, but will be hilarious by the end. Bear with it.

If you live in an apartment, take the pipes off your bathroom sink.

You may be wondering why I am telling you to do this. Let me back up a bit. Our bathroom sink clogs up once in a while. What with the mane that Wife has it's a small wonder that our sink drains at all. It's also a small wonder how she is not completely bald with the amount of hair that ends up in the drain. Every so often, I take the top off the drain stopper and use tweezers to pull out clumps of hair mixed with face-wash-lotion-stuff. This usually works to restore some semblance of flow to the pipes. Sometimes we have to use Draino. But it's always worked. Until this last time.

I pulled out a ridiculous amount of hair. We were out of Draino. The pulling out of hair seemed to actually make it worse. The sink drained at a snail's pace. So I decided to pull the pipes off and really get all the junk out.

First of all, the smell. I mean, really. There is no need for anything to smell as bad as the gunk in your pipes. Oh there was hair. And black gooey paste. Not sure what the heck that stuff is, but once you just accept it, you can grab it with your bare hands and squish it around. And then, the treasures...

You never know, in apartment, who lived there before you. Based on the mail we still get (despite numerous "Return to Sender. They have not lived here for over a year" responses) our humble abode has been occupied by Scientologists, Bed Bath and Beyond shoppers, and people who really, really need to pay their credit card bills. So these mystery people have not only lived here, but also somehow managed to get some very interesting things into the pipes of our sink. I found them as follows:

1. The ink tube of a ball point pen
2. A bamboo-esque stick (sort of like those chop stick looking things that women put through their hair, only shorter)
3. A toothpaste cap
4. A very rusted quarter

Yes, all four of those items were in the pipes of our sink. It is amazing that the water ever went down the pipes with all that junk for hair to get caught on.

Here is my analysis. Perhaps a child lived here at one time. That explains the quarter and possibly the toothpaste cap. The pen and stick, I believe, were accidentally dropped into the pipes by women attempting to push their masses of drain-clogging hair into the pipes to restore water flow.

So, yeah, if you live in an apartment, check the pipes. You may end up with a few good laughs and make 25 cents.