Dreaded bathroom upstairs

FINALLY

After about three years of procrastinating, he got around to overhauling the now-college-gone childrens' bathroom. In the interval, it should be allowed, he had heart surgery and complications that laid him up for a year, but still...............[see moral below]

That bathroom always was a never-never land. His showers were taken in the improvised basement shower stall, commemorated in Vulcan Weathervanes, as the serialized centerfold simple devices feature, in the Sept. 1980 issue. In that article he praised the easy care of such a stall, with a 4-sided curtain hung from the rafters on a bent curtain rod. The platform was made of wood so a showerer could stand on that, rather than cold concrete,

take the shower efficiently and walk away from it. No wiping down ceramic tile, no nothin'.

But the children didn't like the spiders who are given free rein in the basement. Now with the upstairs shower recess inoperative, everybody HAS to shower in the basement. Pressure built. He had to get out the old Saws-All and do some serious ripping and tearing.

As he worked toward completion, which is expected within a few days, he remembered a poem he'd written about merely cleaning out the drain pipe on that affair.

As follows:

……………………………………………

DRAIN HAIR AND SLUDGE

Black muck is stuck in the upstairs tub drain
Where the fleeting teens’ soaps, shampoos
And exfoliated skin trots, jogs, ambles, staggers,
And then barely makes it down the plumbing
To the city sewage system;
And then it doesn’t make it at all;

Their shower water gradually stands still
Taking a day to go down for a while
Whereupon I get told about the situation
As I do not use their bathroom
Preferring my historic basement stall
(See Vulcan Weathervanes, Issue SEPT. 1980)

OK, maybe I get told more than once
To a point reaching a plea

And then I ascend the stairs with my plumber’s snake
And become once more
More familiar than I’d wish
With the sheddings of my children;

The gunk that emerges stuck to the twisting
Probe is truly ugly, an inky-black mush
- can’t be related to this family! -
Perhaps best left unspoken about

Except that there are ONLY so many more
Such reamings to be done before
These mucking orangutans are gone,
- is that why I put off the job? -
Gone off to clog other drains
I won’t get to clear (Hurrah?)

And as I am given to losing things
And missing people
Nowadays
Even while they’re still here
I bet I can even work up a happy mood
Over no more black sludge………..


……………..but not today.

[Handy-Dad 12-9-2002]

[Moral: Never let things go until they get REALLY bad......]