The slime is back.
I thought I had vanquished it in July, but no. This week I had to unclog my bathroom sink drain again.
It doesn’t make sense. We lived in our last house for nearly 19 years without a clog. We lived in this house for nearly three years without a clog. Now, I’m dismantling slime-plugged plumbing every six months.
And it’s weird slime. Not particularly stinky or slimy. In fact, it’s more like soft black rubber: Boiling water didn’t budge it; and even though I couldn’t wipe it off, it peeled off cleanly. The internet tells me it’s ‘biofilm’, formed by colonies of bacteria happily gobbling up the various goodies that go down a drain.
Okay, but why now? It has to be something that I (and only I) have recently started doing. I’ve been using the same moisturizer since 1983; and that’s the only difference between what goes down the drain in Hubby’s sink and mine. Except…
Mouthwash.
Hubby doesn’t use mouthwash, but last year I started using it for the first time in my life.
What’s in that stuff?!? And, more to the point, if it can completely clog a drain with rubbery black slime in six short months, do I really want to rinse my mouth with it?
As I was scraping slime into a bucket while sewer gas wafted to my nose from the open pipes, I began to rethink this whole ‘adult’ thing. It seemed like such a good deal when I was a kid: “Adults get to do whatever they want, whenever they want.” I don’t remember any wording in that contract that said, “…whatever they want, whenever they want, right after all the bills are paid and the meals are cooked and the house is cleaned and the work is done and all the gross slimy disgusting jobs are finished, but only if there’s any money left over after all the other stuff.”
Isn’t there a statute of limitations on adulthood? Shouldn’t we be able to get out of it because, as kids, we didn’t have the intellectual capacity to agree to a contract that would last the rest of our lives? Or, failing that, shouldn’t we at least get parole after fifty years of time served?
Oh, well. I had brownies for breakfast the other day so I guess adulthood isn’t all bad. And the drain is fine now, and I’ve switched to an alcohol-based mouthwash so maybe that will discourage the slime-cooties.
Or, with my luck, they’ll get drunk, invite all their little friends over, and party twice as hard. If I wake up some morning to find rubbery black slime oozing out from under the bathroom door, that mouthwash is GONE!
I might turn in my membership card for adulthood, too. Anybody know where I can do that?
Book 16 update: I’m on Chapter 32, and a dead cow is causing problems for Aydan and the gang. Or maybe the dead cow is the beginning of a solution…
Author Diane Henders 
How did I miss this post.
Adulting is seriously over rated. And sadly being a slime buster is not the worst of it. Not by a long shot.
My inner child is frequently the healthiest and happiest part of me and I am trying to indulge her more (and to listen to her a whole lot more).
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That sounds like an excellent strategy. I’m trying to pay more attention to my inner child these days, too. Sometimes I take my adult self FAR too seriously. 🙂
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Love it….gave me a hearty laugh being the visual thinker I am….mouthwash?? Who would have thought….
As to getting a reprieve from adulthood, I believe that’s called senility to the point of being put in a home….just saying!!
Can’t wait for the next book!
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Thanks, Kirt — I’m eager to get Book 16 out there, too! 🙂
And, hmmm. That whole senility thing doesn’t sound like the kind of reprieve I had in mind. There must be a better way…
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LOL….I’m sure hoping so!!
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Under no circumstance should you watch Stephen King’s Creepshow, in particular the short story of a rural man visited by creatures from outer space that appear to be much like your slnk slime.
Hint: The harder you try to get rid of it, the more it comes back.
I can’t help you with Adulthood; I’m well past it and working on Escapehood.
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Ha! You’re ‘way ahead of me. 🙂 And I’m definitely not going to watch Creepshow, or any other movie with any reference to slime. The longer I live, the less desire I have to add imaginary horrors to already-horrifying reality.
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Speaking of creeps, I’m off all Stephen King, which is sorta sad because he did such good character development.
Speaking of drains: I was in Texas for about 10 years. Went I first moved down, I rented from a guy who offered me part rent for repairs. Knocked out the big stuff easily, but the kitchen sink drained SLOWLY! Tried Draino, boiling water, Plumber’s Friend, etc. The last of those treatments (don’t remember which) plugged the drain completely. A pair of pipe wrenches to undo the trap and… Hair! Not just hair; stinking slimy hair and what had to be miles of it. I have a strong stomach but that nearly got me. The more I pulled the more came out! I guess the draining water had somehow weaved (wove? Woven??) the hair into a near continuous mass. TGF disposable gloves! (Found out later a previous tenant did the neighbor women’s hair. In the kitchen sink.)
Speaking of books – looking forward to the next. I read your first as a Kindle Unlimited selection and have been hooked since. Great job!
Speaking of adulthood – It certainly isn’t what I had in mind when I was 14 and couldn’t wait. On the other hand, it beats then next step in the progression by a country mile!
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You make an excellent point about the “next step”. Maybe I’ll just keep my complaints about adulthood to a minimum. 😉
Re: the hair clog: That’s almost enough to gag me just thinking about it. I pulled one of those out of the shower drain in our old place years ago, and the dripping slime and that schlooooorrrppp sound just… blech! *shudders* The worst part for me, though, was knowing that it was somebody else’s hair. Somehow that made it even grosser.
And thank you so much for your support and kind words — I’m so glad you’re enjoying Aydan and the gang!
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The best morning breath mouth wash is hot strong black coffee. No idea what it does to my pipes but it doesn’t clog the plumbing.
Our kitchen sink is a nightmare. We dump Draino down it at lest once a week. What it needs is boiling water. Plumbing pipes in walls is one thing but under contrete or in masonry is a whole different problem. Sewer gas is also a problem and no one in this country ever heard of a stack Gas and electric are considered certifyable skills but plumbing is ignored as it wont blow up the apartment block.
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Actually I suspect it’s similar here. We did have to have a certified company do our septic tank and field, but the guy who did the plumbing hookups for the house was the brother-in-law of our contractor. I’m pretty sure he didn’t have any qualifications other than a willingness to work with icky stuff. Fortunately most of the plumbing was done in the factory (our house is a modular). I’m glad our plumbing codes are stringent about vent stacks here — sewer gas is NOT my friend!
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Mouthwah? I never would have guessed that. I have to admit such slime in drains makes me gag. No offence but I gagged even at the sight of the title. I’m in for the eating of the brownies. The slime purging not so much.
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LOL! I don’t blame you for gagging. Few things are more disgusting than sink slime. But the brownies were excellent! 😉
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I too want to hand in my adult card. If I go back, then those who were adult before me will stop leaving.. ~sigh.
Oh man sorry about your plumbing issue. I hate doing my own plumbing. Give me a good electrical current that can possibly end me, and I’m all over it. But let there be a possible leak that can later cause mold and I’m suddenly fearful and unable to make decisions. LOL! I can’t explain it. Hats off to you for getting in there and taking care of it. And I don’t know why but when you described the “slime “ my brain gave me a scene from the old sci-fi movie “The Blob”. The scene where the old guy pokes the blob with a stick and it travels up the stick and eats his hand. Yeah no plumbing for me. ~shuddering here.
It always makes me happy to hear about your book progress. Anticipation is exciting!
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I’m sure you and I must be related somehow. I feel the same way about plumbing. I’ll tackle the P-trap under a sink because if it leaks I’ll be able to see it and deal with it before it causes permanent damage, but plumbing in the walls? NOPE! (Not unless I put in access panels so I can check on it. Did I mention that we have a lot of access panels in our house…?)
I think I’m glad I never saw “The Blob”. 😉
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That’s why as an adult, you should sell your house and all your belongings, get in an RV, see the world, and do whatever you please! By the way campers still have drains. And, slime. Especially when one has to be very careful about how much water one uses to clean and rinse things! 🙂
My husband decided to buy mouth wash a couple of months ago as well. Too late, he noticed the ingredients. He never used it again and tossed it. In the trash. Not down the drain. When one doesn’t have big tankage, one needs to be careful about what to toss down the drain…
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Good choice about chucking the mouthwash. Your tank might have been overrun with rubbery black slime!
And you make an excellent point: If I stopped hanging onto all the things that require “adult-ish” maintenance, I could get away with doing less “adult-ish” things. But, like brownies for breakfast, there are some parts of adulthood that are worth the trouble to me. My garden is one of them. 🙂
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Sorry. No statute of limitations…you’re stuck with suing your parents for birthing you.
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Too late; they’ve already departed this world. Guess I’m stuck with adulthood. 😉
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I think our Adult Card entitles us to some time off. We’ve certainly earned it!
Galvanized steel drain pipes in an older house are always an issue here. The tub used to clog a couple of times per month. Once I gutted the galvanized drain pipe for PVC, we haven’t had a clog in the pipe since then. It had gotten so scaly and slimy over 75 years that it was pretty much spent inside. Now the worst of it is the long red hair clogging up the hair trap in the tub drain…which can only be blamed on one person in this household! 😁
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LOL! ‘Long red hair’? Well, I can tell you that’s certainly not an issue in our household. *Nose grows ten inches*
After the first few times I dragged a giant, stinking, dripping snake of clogged hair out of our shower drain, I learned my lesson. These days I use a shower strainer to catch the hairballs before they go down the drain, when they’re still nice and clean and easy to throw away. I guess that’s the curse of doing your own work around the house: If I didn’t do that stuff, I could have remained blissfully ignorant and delegated clog-removal to “someone else”. Somehow I doubt Hubby would approve… 😉
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And just after I spoke about it, yesterday I was subject to a double-header. There’s no water pressure in the shower. (Ours is a combo tub/shower.) “It’s fine,” I said…only, it wasn’t. Just a trickle. I unscrew the showerhead and find it’s full of rust and sand particles. We average one water main break a year on our street and we had our annual installment of said water main break a week and a half ago. I cleaned that out and tried the showerhead to a nice steady flow and yep…drain’s backing up. Time for the nitrile glove and tug-of-war. Which I won. ‘Twas a slimy, hairy beast I pulled from the depths of the tub drain.
So that leads to my new theory. My smarticles were working overtime. Next time, she can live with the low water pressure. That way she won’t notice the blocked drain. Slow water in = slow water out. 💡 I’ll just take my own shower in bliss, in the real shower in the basement, with a nice big drain that my half inch long buzzed hair won’t ever clog. My idea for her to “buzz” her hair with my clippers also did not go over really well.
P.S. If I ever do write a home improvement book (or a book on hair styling, for that matter), I suggest nobody here ever buy it…for obvious reasons…
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“… a slimy, hairy beast” – LOL! And blech! Your “slow-in-slow-out” does sound like an interesting solution; and hey, you’re saving water with that whole low-flow thing, too. This is why I do my own repairs around the house: You can’t trust those sneaky husbands and their bright ideas. 😉
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Adulting is highly overrated in my opinion. Then again, others insist that I actually try it sometime. Apparently, the jury is still out. I know I certainly am.
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Don’t try it! It’s the thin edge of the wedge, just a diabolical trick to make you join the rest of the adult world. And as long as the jury is still out, you’re not guilty. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. 😉
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Sound advice. This is me taking it. To the Caribbean.
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Could it be that someone is losing some hair? That may exacerbate the clog problem. The stuff above my ears and eyebrows is gone, but the stuff below keeps sprouting. My sink clogs much less frequently now that the stuff on top is long gone.
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Ah, yes, the hairball issue. As a lifelong ‘longhair’, I’m careful to keep my shedding to a minimum around the sink. I found exactly one long hair in there — the rest was just rubbery slime. I’m still blaming the mouthwash. 😉
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Anxiously waiting reader here. On Chapter 32, so does that mean you are close to finishing? I wait for your emails for each update. I finding waiting so hard (not as hard as it must be for you making time to write with all your adult obligations (love your most recent post). Hurry up girl, I can’t wait for the next book. (even though I have to, childish whine here).Hey notice all the waiting in my email? I hope you take this with a smile and and an encouragement, not as criticism.
As Always your fan,Susan
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Hi Susan! Hmm, I did notice a bit of ‘waiting’ in there. Sheer coincidence, I’m sure. 😉 I usually aim for about 50 chapters, so I’m sneaking up on the finish line. Hopefully the unscheduled house repairs will be over for a while and I’ll get some quality writing time. I’m eager to get it done!
Thanks for your encouragement — always appreciated!
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Here’s an idea. I had a similar problem some years ago and like yourself tried many different products off the shelf and none seemed to fix it. Then I read something from an obscure website that suggested using (now don’t throw something at your computer screen) vinegar. Yep vinegar. There is a type of vinegar that has ‘distilled’ or ‘For Cleansing’ on the label that is a bit different than the stuff you cook with. Hope it works.
Bob
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That’s a great idea! Change the pH in the there, and see how the cooties like that. I’ll give it a try. 🙂
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Yes, adulthood is highly over rated. I couldn’t find a place to turn in my adult card, so I just buried in the backyard, right next to the swing.
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That’s an excellent solution! Now I just need to get a swing set… 😉
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Your blog, as always, managed to bring a smile to my face this week! Its been a tough few days and adult things have gone out the window! My washing up is piling and my laundry is too! Too many deadlines and exams to have the time to breathe and eat let alone be an adult. Unfortunately, bills and rent can’t wait. Luckily, my housemates aren’t here at the moment so can’t witness the chaos I’ve caused!
I hope you find the cause of the slime – it sounds even more grim than my coding coursework which says a lot!
To end on a good note, I’m almost done doing all the adult like things needed to legally change my name woo!
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Hooray, I’m glad your name-change is almost complete! Today is laundry day for me, and I’m glad I don’t have to deal with exams. I’m almost to the point now where I don’t have the ‘exam dream’ anymore: You know, the one where you have to write an exam but you didn’t have time to study; and then you’re late and you can’t find the exam room; and when you do finally find the room, the exam is gibberish; and you might just be naked. I don’t envy you at all… 😉
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