Last Monday was the day that just Would.Not.Die.
Long story short, it was the horrible, awful, no good, very bad day that got better (!) before it turned black, ugly and smelly.
The bright spot of the day was when I learned Mommy Dearest was in town shopping with Monster. After a particularly rotten day at work, Husband and I decided I needed a hug and some sympathy from MD .
We met up with them at Sam's before heading to Wal-Mart before MD decided to treat us to dinner at Red Robin (where we surprised her by having the wait staff sing Happy Birthday to her 4 days early…she was totally out of the loop and it was HY-sterical!)
I’m getting to the ugly part, don’t you start thinking I’m a drama queen….
Husband dropped me off at home around 9 before driving Monster back to her apartment. I decided to treat myself to a nice warm bath to relax before heading to bed but, when I started to drain the tub, I heard a bubbling, gurgling noise coming from our second bathroom down the hall. Wrapped in a towel I sprinted down the hall and found this in the second bathtub:
Well that can’t be good.
You can’t tell in the pictures but there were leaves, bark and what appeared to be seaweed in the muck. Last time I checked I wasn’t bathing trees in that tub and I certainly wasn’t using the second bathroom as a makeshift sushi bar so this was all really quite interesting to me.
And it smelled like dirt, mixed with standing water mixed with poo-filled pond. It was like the thing from the black lagoon had a tummy ache and exploded in my bathtub.
Being the smart girl that I am, I grabbed the plunger and got to work (yes, still in a towel with my hair in a turbie-twist. I looked like a white Aunt Jemima churning black, stinky butter, not my best look).
When 10 minutes of plunging did squat, I got myself presentable and waited for Husband to come home, I’m sure he was really sorry to miss the Aunt Jemima Butter Churning show.
Another 15 minutes of plunging had reaped no reward so we called our afterhours emergency maintenance team to come give it a shot.
Grumpy McDouchey (not his real name, obviously) showed up about 20 minutes after we called and explained the problem and that 20 minutes of plunging the crap out of our bathtub had done nada and what does he do? Gets a plunger and starts going to town on our bathtub.
Right. Cuz we hadn’t tried that.
-30 minutes later- Estimated time 10:30
“It seems to be clogged.”
Oh, really?
“We’ll have to call a plumber in the morning, because plunging doesn’t seem to be working.”
Yeah! We Know! That’s why we called you! And no, we can’t wait until morning because we have jobs.
No, for real. We. Have. JOBS.
“We have to work in the morning and I really don’t feel comfortable sleeping with this just standing in my bathtubs (by this point the sludge had begun to come up in our master bathtub..you know, the one I shower in?) it's a health hazard so I’d appreciate it if you’d call a 24-hour plumber or else I’ll go to a hotel and see that the apartment manager reimburses us for the expense.”
“I can’t do that, it’s not my authority and if you’ll have to take it up with the manager. What time can the plumber be here in the morning?”
“Well, like I said, we have to go to work so can he be here by 6?”
“Oh that’s not going to happen. He can be here between 11-2."
It was at this point that Husband stepped in because I was quite literally about to lose my shit on this guy.
Husband was able to sweet-talk Grumpy McDouche into getting his manager to come investigate the problem.
CrabApple McJerkface (also probably not his real name) knocked on our door with a vaccumy tool at around 11 and began trying to suck out whatever was clogging our drain. Thirty minutes go by and:
“It’s not working; we’ll have to have a plumber come by in the morning.”
He basically has a repeat of the conversation I had just had with Grumpy McDouche, with Husband.
Now Husband is about to read these guys the riot act (notice his version of losing his temper is a lot more dignified than my ‘losing of the shit’??) When Grumpy McDouche dawdles out of the hall bathroom and says “It’s stuck (referring to their vaccumy tool) we’ll have to call a plumber.”
FREAKING FINALLY!
The plumber is called and CrabApple McJerkface informs us that he will be arriving by 2 a.m., at this point it is midnight and we have spent 3 hours fighting to get them to call a plumber so we agree.
Husband brews a pot of coffee, I settle in with a book, Grumpy McDouche goes home (presumably) and CrabApple McJerkface leaves and tells us to call him when the plumber arrives and he’ll come back to sign the work order.
At 1:30 the plumber arrives with a bigger vaccumy thingamajig, followed closely by CrabApple McJerkface who is giving a recap of the issue heavy on the emphasis that we refused to wait until morning thus the reason why his dinky tool is stuck in our tub drain.
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER(!!)
I hear the drain sucking and slurping down the muck that the bathtub threw up. The plumber emerges from the secondary bathroom holding the biggest dreadlock I’ve ever seen like the winning trout in a fishing competition.
“That’s not mine!” were the first words out of my mouth.
The plumber explained the hair was probably built up over years and because our two tubs share a drain pipe, the blockage got lodged in the pipe between the two bathtubs and thus caused the black muck to back up into both bathtubs.
“It was a quick fix! You guys shouldn’t have any problems.”
!!!!! - yeah, we were ticked. We had just spent 4 hours fighting with the circus troupe our apartment complex calls a maintenance team for what a plumber called a quick fix.
As the plumber left, CrabApple McJerkface practically had his tail between his legs as he followed the plumber out of our apartment mumbling something about being right back.
He returned 10 minutes later…armed with some 409 and a sponge.
And that is how I got my bathtubs cleaned for free by my apartment maintenance manager.
And yes, I might have been doing a little victory dance while whispering “Scrub my tub, sucka” in the living room while he cleaned out the bathtubs. That’s just how I roll…
**P.S. He did a really crappy job so it technically wasn’t a victory, but still, you gotta take what you can get**
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