Well, today has been a particularly miserable Valentine's Day.

One thing you must know about me is that I have a bad tendency to take things as symbolic. Particularly bad things.

I woke up too early this morning, and decided to get up and exercise. When my feet hit the floor, I realized it was unusually cold in my house.

The furnace was not working. It was 62* and I had the thermostat set on 68*.

So I went and looked at the old beast, trying to get some idea of what was wrong (my furnace has LEDs on it that supposedly code out the problems, except that the description of what the codes mean are written in such a way that you have to be a heating contractor to understand them). I did notice a "reset" button on the thing (had not seen that before), so I pushed it, figuring what the hey, the worst thing that could happen was nothing, and I'd have to call the heating guy and hope he was in (I need to add here that we have snow - a very unusual condition for southern Oklahoma - and we have quite a lot of snow today).

So I pushed the button. The furnace fired up but I've been listening nervously to it all day, every time that it comes on. So far, it still sounds healthy, and it's not cut out early, or failed to spark, or anything else.

So, I sat down and started grading my exams. And I am not sure why, but when I went into the bathroom for some reason (I forget what now), I noticed there was crud in the tub, like water had backed up but ran out. And then, foolishly, I tried flushing the toilet.

You know that Jerry Seinfeld routine, where he says the most helpless feeling in the world is when you flush the toilet and the water goes up instead of down?

It's true. It's especially true on a snowy Saturday before a holiday (for everyone else, but not for me) Monday.

I tried calling plumbers. I called ten and raised none.

So I plunged. And tried flushing again. And dove for the water cut-off valve again. Lather, rinse, repeat.

it got to the point where I was only plunging because I was ANGRY, angry that no tradespeople work on weekends, angry that I didn't know anyone that I felt I could call for help, angry that G.D.I. me decided to live alone instead of trying to find a housemate or something so I don't even have someone to plunge while I turn the cut off valve on.
Angry that it was Valentine's Day, and I was alone, and I was fighting a toilet.

Finally, I decided to call one of my colleagues, someone who built his own house. (I would have called my dad but he's at meetings in Arizona and I don't have the number where he is). Understand I did NOT want this person to come out and help me, I did NOT want to drag him from his fireside and his wife's arms (which is what I envisioned, it being Valentine's Day). But I figured it wouldn't be too pitiful to ask advice.

So I did.

Sulfuric acid, he said, what you need is a drain preparation made with sulfuric acid. No, Wal-Mart will not carry it, you will have to go to a hardware.

Thank goodness the local hardware decided, for a change, to be open past noon on a Saturday (there have been times I've gone there at times they SHOULD be open and the gates are all locked and the building is dark. One of the pitfalls of living in a smaller town is that often businesses close up for the day if there's no customers, or if the owner feels like going home early).

I got the stuff. Labeled "Oil of Vitriol" on the side. (which is, I found by looking in the dictionary, concentrated sufuric acid. I don't know if they say "Oil of Vitriol" to throw off people who might use it in the manufacture of meth - the owner of the hardware store told me he had caught people buying multiple bottles of the stuff just for that purpose - or if it is to hide the fact that it's actually a pretty common, garden-variety lab chemical that I probably could have, um, "borrowed" for free from the department.)

So I came home and put it down the sink and the toilet, figuring two avenues would be better than one. The stuff smells evil, pure evil - you can almost see the vapors taking on the form of a skull and crossbones, like in a cartoon - so I opened my front door and vacated the area for the fifteen minutes it was supposed to take to work.

After fifteen minutes, nothing.

So I went out back, in the yard. Partly to get away from the source of my frustration, partly to consider if I could perhaps dig a latrine for this weekend's use (and that is how desperate I was, and how desperate not to call my colleague and ask him to come out and help), and partly to see if I could find the t-pipe he mentioned, which would be a place to try snaking as a last resort (I couldn't find it).

Finally, I came back in, defeated, wondering if I dared call my colleague and consign myself to playing the role of the Pitiful Single Girl Who Cannot Do Anything for Herself.

But first, I looked in the tub, which, last I checked, was full of frighteningly murky water.

The tub was draining (hallelujah).

I watched it drain, and then thought, "dare I hope?"

I turned the water on in the tub and let it run 10 minutes. It all drained, the tub did not fill and overflow.

So I turned the water back on to the toilet, let the tank fill, did an experimental flush, ready to dive for the cut-off valve yet again.

The water went down.
The water came back up.
The water stopped where it was supposed to.

I tried it again, same outcome.

I think the problem is solved.

I did go back out - and brave the Wal-Mart on a Saturday afternoon - to buy a hair-trap for the tub drain. I figure up until now I had been living on borrowed time, trusting that all the long hairs I shed every time I showered were either dissolving or washing out of my pipes. Obviously, that was not true, and I'm guessing the majority of the clog was my shed hair.

and now, I am exhausted. What a stinky day (literally, considering some of the water I had to deal with). I really hope this is the last bad stuff for a while.