Season of Plumbing Disasters

For as long as we have been bathing children my very cautious husband has been warning me to be sure that NO toys go down the drain. We have a strainer that goes in the drain that is supposed to be used with every draining and nothing had ever gone down the drain. I was pretty comfortable with it.

Until…

There were no small toys in the tub only big things that I didn’t need to worry about. 8 had a fit about getting his hair washed, I got him finished and in bed then came back to finish The Goblin Child. She wanted to finish with a shower. I pulled the plug without putting in the strainer and she frantically began to grab her toys away from the drain. I started to laugh and tell her they wouldn’t fit down the drain but she was so worried I let her protect them and helped her out a little.

Then it slipped passed her fingers. I saw it as it rushed towards the drain but not soon enough to stop it. The nipple from big baby’s bottle, carefully removed from it’s ring and of course unscrewed from the bottle. I dove, hand first, down the drain after it and caught it with the tip of my finger. There was still water in the tub and I could feel it tugging at my flimsy grasp on the nipple. With teeth clinched I hung on with all my might. The last of the water finally passed and still it was there almost within reach yet totally beyond my grasp.

To make a long story short I tried to get it but only pushed it farther. I finally accepted the inevitable and told my husband. He had been warning me of the disastrous consequences should this happened. I expected to be in trouble. He was very nice about it and when he came home from work that night he started in on the plumbing.

He tore everything apart, hoping to dig out our addition, only to find that the pipes were rusted through, paper thin and leaking already. I wont go as far as to say it was in any way a good thing that we washed toys down the drain but it is lucky that he found the leaky pipes before they burst altogether. Then he started looking for the nipple, it had somehow disappeared. He started asking me if I was positive it had gone down the drain? Had I seen it?

I got in there with him and we stuck things up the pipes from each direction and poked and prodded. Nothing was to be found with our explorations. We were dumbfounded. There was no way it had made it past the P trap and it certainly hadn’t come back up the drain, it had to be there. I gave up and proposed flushing it out with water. Saner heads prevailed and he gave it one last try. And got it! It did exist! The day was saved and we got new plastic pipes and a shiny and handy new shelf in the bathroom cabinet. And a new strainer right it the drain so this can never happen again.