Ah, Downstairs Bathroom Plumbing,We Hardly Knew Ye

About a month ago, the plumbing in my downstairs bathroom came to life. It acquired full sentience. Became a conscious being. It was a miracle.

Here's the interesting part, though: having achieved its goal of being the first bathroom plumbing system to experience a sense of self--to reach beyond mere copper, brass, wiped lead, and porcelain to take a sniff of the unexplored realms of consciousness--its very first act was to commit suicide.

The signs were ominous and the portents veritably dripping with looming tragedy, kinda like the part in Flowers For Algernon when the mouse starts acting all about-to-be-deady.

One day last month, apparently right after my bathroom plumbing came to life, I noticed the drain in the bathroom sink was a little slow. So, as any unsuspecting accomplice would have done, I decided to remove the S-trap underneath it and clean out any potential cloggage therein. I mean, there's a lot of hair going on in this house. Still, fair enough, easy enough; mission accomplished.

But my glow of plumbing confidence was matched only by the stench of impending death from the chromed brass drainpipe, which decided while I was reattaching the trap to take some quality time and simply disintegrate. It just (intentionally, I swear) turned into about 400 smallish pieces of jagged chromed brass flakes right in my fingers, leaving a great big empty space where something to keep sink water from getting all over my bathroom should have been.

A quick run (actually, more of a hurried trudge) to Aubuchon Hardware produced a Fernco coupling--a little rubber sleeve with hose clamps on either side of it--and a new piece of drainpipe. I hooked this all up with the meager earthly remains of the previous drainpipe. To my surprise, this textbook jury rig has held water for a couple of weeks. I thought I had saved my sink.

But instead, it seemed that my sink had actually become a zombie, creeping the streets at night moaning "Braiiiiiinnnnss" and terrorizing the other bathrooms in the neighborhood until sunrise.

Then just today, the toilet flatlined. Or at least went into what the cardiologists call crapicardia: not getting rid of all the...well, we'll call it the Republican Party platform...after a flush.

So given my liberal arts education, software development background, and passing knowledge of quantum entanglement, I made an educated decision and pulled out the plunger. A few plunges later and the toilet was flowing like the rain in Seattle. Yes, it was quiet.

Too quiet.

Then I heard a rhythmic thoomp-thoomp-thoomp sound from the basement below. It sounded a bit like blood dripping from the severed head of a teenager who figured that splitting up to look for the maniacal killer would be a good idea.

It actually was the blood from the plumbing in my downstairs bathroom, dripping from two cast-iron joints in the drain line. Well, it wasn't blood so much as water, but still, it was making a thoomp-thoomp-thoomp sound, circling the proverbial drain. I tried to tighten the dripping cap on the cleanout to no effect, then tried to verify that it was true toilet suicide by flushing again and running back downstairs.

That's when I saw it: a gush of water such as should never be seen by anyone but a licensed plumber, going straight from my toilet tank onto the unfinished floor of my basement. The corpse of my plumbing was laid bare for me to observe in horror. I have nightmares about it. And I haven't even gone to sleep yet.

So requiescat in pace, you brave and beautiful toilet flange, and you merely mortal cast iron hub fittings. You only winked at the face of God--or at least whatever was staring down at you through the toilet bowl--for a brief time. You will be missed.

Donations in lieu of flowery-smelling air freshener can be made to me directly; I'm going to need them when the plumber bill comes.