Cleaning and swearing at the kitchen sink

Well, today and tomorrow are cleaning days - got to get ready for my daughter's return from college, and I might have a surprise visitor in the next few days. Maybe. Or not, as is often the case when I start to expect something.

I've gotten the cat pans cleaned out, and am working on cleaning up the disaster area that houses them and their food, water, and litter. Of course, they have free reign all over the house, but I do try to keep the mess confined to one room. Try, I said. Not succeed, try.

Oh, and the kitchen sink is clogged. Badly. Suddenly.

It happened on the day before Thanksgiving, of course. And then I was away for the entire weekend, so there was nothing to be done about it. It had drained when I arrived home on Monday, so I left it until yesterday, when I ran to the hardware store and got some drain cleaner. (Because plunging had not worked. At all.)

Yeah, well, neither did the drain cleaner, so back I went today, for a snake. I know what to do with one of those... shove it down the drain, clear away a bit of the clog so the drain cleaner can get to the rest of it. Right?

Wrong. The stupid end of the stupid snake is too big to go down the drain in the sink. So now I'm back to plunging, in hopes of moving a little bit of the clog enough for the drain cleaner (which is still sitting in there, as the water won't go down at all now) to get to it and do its job.

It is 20 after 5, and I have accomplished exactly none of the tasks I had set for myself for today. Oh, the joys of home ownership.