Plunging in

Yesterday I had an adventure with the toilet.

I know that's not really enthralling, and probably something no one wants to hear about, but it ended up funny, and I love to share a laugh at myself. How can you get any fairer than that?

The toilet was stopped up. We flushed and plunged, flushed and plunged, flushed and plunged. It seemed endless, but there really are not that many hours in the day. It wasn't as long as it seemed. My husband was hopeless, giving up, mumbling about having to call a plumber or the landlord. (He'd rather call and pay a plumber. One of the reasons we -I- rent is so we can call the landlord.)

So, being an experienced toilet unstopper (teenage daughters at one time, need I say more?), I waited until the mopey mumbler went to sleep and I unearthed my toilet snake from behind the water heater.
I don't know how a toilet snake is different from any other snake, but to work it you put it in and you turn a handle. You turn and turn and turn.

Pretty soon, it felt like I'd been turning as long as we had been flushing earlier!
I kept turning, and push-pulling on the little handle thing. Then I'd turn some more.

Success at last! Gurgle gurgle, all the water that was up went down.

And I had to put the turn into reverse. It wouldn't go!
I had to pull. It wouldn't pull!
I had the snake stuck!
My now unclogged toilet was sitting there with this humongous spring in a couple of metal shafts.  I'd never be able to use the toilet with that thing sticking out of it!

I'd unwind it a bit (the handle would turn after a tug), then pull a bit. It really didn't seem to be getting anywhere. Turn and tug, turn and tug, turn and tug.

In the meantime, while turning and tugging,  I'm imagining calling a plumber or the landlord, and having to explain to them my plumbing emergency. What do you say? "Hello. I'm calling the plumber because I unstopped my toilet myself?"
"Hello, I need the toilet taken up in my house because there's a plumbing snake in it?"
And what would they actually do? Use metal cutters? Break the toilet?
Would anyone actually believe this story if I told it?
What is Rex going to say when he wakes up and has to pee into an observably clogged toilet? He's going to think I was really stupid!

Eventually, the turning and tugging did work, and I got the snake out, and the toilet has been working perfectly since. (The neighbor's toilet is probably working well, too.)

That was a new way of using the bathroom as a place of contemplation and imagination.