I'm not a plumber, but I'll take a look...

Author's note: Your regular 'Random Act of Thursday' will not be seen today. Instead we bring you the following heartwarming tale of home maintenance.

I hate the smell of sewage in the morning. Smells like…failure.

Lori called me yesterday to tell me that the dishwasher had backwashed and flooded the sink cabinet with its leavings, thanks to some previously inept plumbing work. I touched the hose from the dishwasher to the disposal, which promptly fell off the disposal into my hand. I tapped the sink trap, which promptly dropped from the disposer and out of the wall.

We’ve been fighting with a minor clog for a while now, but I couldn’t figure out how one side of the sink would work just fine, and the other did its best to attract mosquito larvae by standing for long periods of time. I tried fixing this myself yesterday, and finally broke down and called the plumber when my 'Junior Plumber Fix-It Kit' snake couldn’t get past the resistance in the drain.

This is not the first time we’ve had to call a plumber for this sink - click here for last year’s saga.

Forty feet of professional drain snake later, the sink was draining, swirling away all Coreolus-like, and all was well with the world. I managed to scrub the stink of failure (and sewage) from my hands, cough up $175 for his time, and went to sleep thinking we were groovy.

Cut to this morning, nice hot shower, refreshing, new day has dawned, and the like. However, when I opened the shower curtain, I saw the lake where once was our bathroom floor. The water going down the shower drain was forcing its way back up through both toilets and running over the wax rings. Sixty feet of larger scale professional drain snake from the street (and $200) later, we can once again flush with minimal trepidation. Ah, the joys of home ownership.

Can’t you just hear Wagner playing in the background?

It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care.

So I promised everyone over at Bev's place that I'd show you my official workspace, where I do the stuff that goes with that whole employment thing I have going on (and sometimes things like this that don't).


So here goes.

Yes, there are two cups on my desk. What you can't see behind the monitor are two water bottles and another cup. I'm down to one stress ball on the desk, the rest have been safely hidden away in one of the drawers. To the right is my perpetually-knotted headset. Mustn't forget the blatant product placement hanging on the wall! You can't see the second stapler, the black mark at the very left of the desk, which is my Milton-tribute Swingline. For looks only. The plastic fork is for jump-starting my little desk fan when it decides not to spin. And yes, I'm one of those ergonomic keyboard nerds.


Like you're surprised.

And then there's my Get Fuzzy collection, things that make me chuckle when I'm feeling blue. And a business-card-sized piece of Velcro. If I knew why, I'd tell you.

And I think I may have mentioned the leaky ceiling. Maybe.

Because this is my workplace, I don't have copies of my unfinished novels lying about, those are in the other office. My desk used to be far worse clutter-wise, but since I travel as much as I do, I try to keep it tidy(er). We also have a new 'clean desk' policy, requiring anything potentially secure to be locked away at night. In my case, if I put something in a drawer, it ceases to be useful, and will eventually go into the locked shred bin.

Because that's how I roll, yo.

If the Buick ain't happy, ain't nobody happy...

Now I understand more fully why I have flood insurance. It rains in Florida, I'm no stranger to that. However, before today, I've never feared for my car just leaving the subdivision. The creek/gulley that runs behind the houses was full as I crept down the center of my road, and I'm sure by now the pool is overflowing as well.

Even now, I can hear cars outside the office driving through a foot or more, rain that falls faster than the storm drains can suck it down. And I passed more than a few of these:

Of course, I could rejoice slightly that I had the Buick, and didn't have to ride the bike in, like the rainsuited Hayabusa rider I passed on the crosstown. As some of you already know, I have a hard time keeping the bike upright on dry pavement.

For the most part, I was able to remain a sane, safe driver. For the last few blocks of my drive, though, I had the choice of turning around or driving through a foot or more of flowing water. Hint: if the puddle has cresting waves, DON'T drive through it. I did, with a dumptruck coming towards me, pedal down, not looking to see if the water was flowing in around the doors, and all the while my engine going 'Rrrr-rrr-rrr-rrr'. I did manage to make it to the office, since I know that stopping in the puddle is the worst thing to do.

When I got out of the car, the wheel wells were all smoking. I can hope I didn't crack the block in the process, that would probably be bad.