Mom, There's a Small Problem in Your Bathroom.

If there are eight words I can assure you that you don't want to hear. They are, "Mom, there's a small problem in your bathroom."

Panic will set in.  You will get a sinking feeling in your stomach that shit's about to get real (quite literally). It will be hard to get a full breath without feeling like you are going to puke.  Dread will ensue.  It ain't pretty.  I don't wish it for you.

Let me back track a few minutes.  I sent one of my children into my bathroom to take a shower. After about 20 minutes he appears wrapped in a towel at my bedroom door, peaks his head around the corner and utters those 8 words.  My first thought is that the toilet is clogged.  Nope.  Toilet is fine. I look around and don't see too much amiss.  He points in the direction of the shower.  I notice that there is a white film covering the shower doors.  I ask what that is.  Then he points to the drain.  The drain cover is no longer attached to the shower floor.  "So, what is the problem here?" I ask.  He points into the drain.

Sorry for the visual.  It just couldn't de described accurately in words.  That,  my friends, is a container of hair mousse approximately 24 inches down the drain.  So that is what the film on the doors was as well.  His explanation was that he was drawing pictures in the shaving cream that he spread on the door and then the drain cover accidentally came off and the bottle accidentally when flying down the drain.  

Accidentally, huh?  The drain cover was ATTACHED to the shower floor.  This was definitely no accident.  Now I am just pissed.  What would possess someone to remove a drain cover and drop a bottle down the drain?   Grrrrrrrr!!!!!

Drew is out of town so I am on my own here for the upcoming plumbing project I have in store.  That in itself is a disaster waiting to happen.  

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I am flustered.  The kid is upset.  Not a good combination.  I pull all kinds of "tools" out to try to remedy the situation.   I think I tried every kind of pairs of tongs that we own.  Little ones, big ones, grill ones...the works.   The bottle fit just right down the drain and it was slick so it had no edge that I could get the tongs to catch. At this point I am losing it.

I went to the basement to try and figure out where the pipe comes through the floor to see if it was accessible.  No luck.  At this point I am in tears.  Stupid to cry about, I know.  It had already been one of those days where all you feel like you do is referee arguments and put out fires.  This was just icing on the fun-time cake.  

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After about an hour trying to figure this out on my own I break down and call Drew.  His first reaction, God bless him, was, "DO NOT TRY TO TAKE APART ANY PIPES BY YOURSELF!!" Yeah, no shit Sherlock.  I can't even find the damn pipe in the basement.  He asks me if I've tried the shop vac. 

"Um, no.  How would that help me?" I ask.  

He responds, "If you create a seal around the top of the drain with the shop vac tube and turn the shop vacuum on, it should suck it up out of the pipe."  

Thanks, Mr. Logical.  I go get the dang shop vac and do as he suggested and lo and behold, it made a loud ass banging noise and sucked the bottle right up out of the pipe.  I open the shop vac to remove the bottle.  To my surprise it was not there.  Finally I realized the mousse is now caught in the filter of the stupid vacuum.  Better the shop vac than my shower, right?  I performed surgery on the vacuum and finally got the bottle of mousse out.  Yay, me.

I know it sounds ridiculous, but I was so worked up about the f'ing 'Mousse Bottle Incident of 2016' that I couldn't help but cry.  

More than my swollen eyes from crying, I felt like a ding dong for taking pictures of myself holding a slimy mousse bottle that had been stuck in the drain only moments before.  Sometimes I just have to have photographic evidence of the shit that goes down around here so that people actually believe me.