Several weeks ago, I bought 4 gallons of vinegar, earning me a strange look from the cashier at the grocery store. "That's a lot of vinegar," she commented simply. I couldn't quell the explanation--or rather excuse--inside of me. "There's a lot of uses for vinegar. You can make window cleaner and use it as a disinfectant and I even use it in place of fabric softener." I'd lost her. "Don't your clothes smell like vinegar?" I sighed. "No." Then I gave up. There were three people behind me in line, who I could tell silently groaned as I pulled out my reusable cloth grocery bags.
It's a good thing I didn't share my vinegar and baking soda/salt drain cleaner story. Near the end of week two of being essentially snowed in from the Great Blizzard of 2010, our toilet had started gurgling ominously. My daughter, well-known for her overuse of TP, already knew how to turn off the water at the back of the toilet just in time to stop the dreaded overflow. Now, she refused to flush at all, and the exclaims of disgust from the rest of us were a daily (sometimes twice!) occurrence. I looked out the front window where the vent to our septic tank lay uder 3 feet of snow. Even if we needed to, there was no way anyone could dig it up now. What to do?
We'd fought the battle of the clogged toilet before. Five or so years ago, we had a chronic blockage that would miraculously clear, only to come back again without any--uh--unusually large amount of flushable material going down the drain (or NOT going down the drain). My husband tried the metal snake, a truly frightening tool. I mean, what do you do with THAT after it's been used. I'd just as soon throw it away and buy a new one every time except I'm too cheap for that. Next, I surreptitiously went to the store and bought some awful, earth-killing drain cleaner which didn't help at all. Finally, we bought a new toilet. On a hunch, my husband decided to bust the old toilet open with a sledge hammer, an act which I'm sure was quite gratifying. Inside, he found a plastic ant trap, which acted like a flapper and had closed off the toilet drain when it got stuck.
We vowed never again to let things go so far, or to use ant traps on drafty bathroom windows. It was time for some drastic action. It was time...for vinegar. I discovered a simple recipe "to unclog drains" in a household hints book. Mix 1 cup salt with 1 cup baking soda. Pour it into the clogged drain and then add 1/2 cup white vinegar. Let it sit for 20 minutes. Then, pour 1 gallon of boiling water down the drain. My husband skeptically peered over my shoulder, worrying about cracked porcelain and melting pipes, as I pulled the handle. Everything went down. I was excited: "Let's do the other one too!" Thirty minutes later, all of our pipes were as clean as a whistle.
At that point, my son came in with an urgent look on his face. "Are you done in the bathroom? Ugh, what's that smell?" Flushed with success, I looked at him a little sheepishly. "Ummmm....boiled pee." He was horrified, but shooed us out anyway. Now if we can only convince our daughter that it's safe to flush.
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