The first acid trip starts with my clogged bathroom sink. It was always sluggish in sucking down water, but one day the pipe closed up like a buffet when the Three Tenors are in town. I had to stick my hands in the tub to wash them.
I tried Drano. It took two days, but the Drano eventually left the sink basin. Where it went I don't know, since the sink was still as clogged as Letterman's arteries. The sink had a trap at the bottom I could unscrew, so I did. I stuck my finger in the trap, and it was like digging a hole in the beach. Wet green gunk came out, years worth of corroded hair and dirt and toothpaste spit. Icky but satisfying digging. However, it didn't unclog the pipe, just added a foot or so of empty space between me and the remaining goop. Plus, the plug was so corroded the threads were stripped, so I had to invest 74 cents in a new plug.
The sink, now a one way drain, turned into just a shelf for my brush and contacts. I spat toothpaste into the toilet, and washed my hands in the tub. My tub had enough abuse. It had a small leak by its drain that I had to put Tupperware under to keep the bathmat from getting wet. It had to see me naked every day. And, I washed my cave suit in there.
Whenever I go caving, I wear a nylon orange jumpsuit that gets all the mud on it. It usually comes back a few pounds heavier. I don't have access to a big utility sink or a garden hose, and I don't have grudges against local laundromats, so the suit goes on the floor of the shower. I step on it for a week or so, I stand in what looks like Nesquik the whole week, and by Friday the suit is beginning to look orange again.
The water sometimes went down slowly in the tub, but that was just because the water was the consistency of one of those muscle mass shakes. It always went back to proper drainage. But this last cleaning, I held the suit up to the water pressure of the shower nozzle for a minute, blasted dirt by the trowelful off it, and it all went down the drain at once. Going through the pipe, it pulled a Baby Jessica.
I had to bail my coffee colored tub water into the toilet, the only fixture in my bathroom that had an working drain left. If that got stopped up ... well, let’s not think about what the kitchen sink would have to be turned into. And there was no trap on the tub drain, so I couldn't pretend to be a plumber for this problem.
Or could I? I found a little hardware store in Fort Lee with plumbing supplies. Not a Home Depot, but a real old fashioned hardware store, a leftover from when stores were smaller than airport hangars. Three old guys were hanging around the cash register. Five bucks said two of them didn’t work here.
The only drain cleaner they had was Liquid Fire. It was packaged like homemade preserves, only this was a generic red plastic bottle, with large warning signs to not look in the drain while this is working. I checked the ingredients, and it wasn’t based on bleach like Liquid Plumber or Drano. It was sulfuric acid.
I took it to the register, saying I had tried Drano and it did nothing. “Kid stuff,” he chuckled. Yeah, kid stuff. I was going for the real man’s drain cleaner, the stuff that sent lesser men to the emergency room.
After a quick check of my medical insurance, I took the Liquid Fire to the tub. And got scared to use it. This was getting disturbingly close to a Home Improvement episode. Five days later, I saw an A-Team episode and thought it was a good idea again.
Just a few ounces, directly into the drain. It was supposed to be completely drained beforehand, but I was bailing with a piece of Tupperware, and once the water level goes into the drain you can only bail with a straw and wait for evaporation. So most of the fluid I poured ended up sitting in a puddle on top of the drain.
It instantly sizzled. smoke or steam or some visible gas meandering up from the drain. It smelled like sulfur, hard boiled eggs left in a broken refrigerator for a year. Little air bubbles shot up from the drain. That had to be good. The bubbles of melting mud.
I peeked in every few minutes, to hopefully see an empty tub with a clear drainpipe, but the brown puddle was still there. If I wanted a shower now, I wouldn’t be standing in a warm bathwater but slowly disintegrating in warm bathwater plus sulfuric acid. So I turned the tap on, severely watered down the acid, and bailed the mess into the toilet.
A day later, I tried again. Tiny bubbles again, but nothing that could be called progress. I went to bed, woke up, and found the tub empty. It worked. Success! I happily took a shower, scrubbing the high water level that had been on the side of the tub for a week or so now with my feet. It all went down the drain, at an alarming quickness. This stuff really worked. I got out of the shower and stepped on a bathmat as wet as a sheepdog in a sprinkler.
The Liquid Fire, having a choice of dissolving the mud clog or the pipe itself, chose the latter. The pipe was still there, but it was detached and hung a half inch low. All my muddy shower water ran out of that half inch and was turning my bathroom floor into a new Mississippi Delta. Right now the pipes were connected only by a hair and mud clog the size of a bratwurst visible through the gap. I pulled out the clog and satisfyingly threw it in the toilet. I tried jamming the pipe back in its place, but to paraphrase a wise man, I don't think so, Sean.
I called my landlord in, after a thorough bathroom cleaning (as well as the rest of the apartment; I don’t want him to know how shabbily I’ve been treating the place). He took a quick look at the pipe. “Yep, rotted out. I’ll get a plumber in here.” Phew. Good thing the pipes sucked to begin with.
New PVC pipe got installed, and it works like John Henry (pre-death, that is). It even stopped that little drain leak, so it frees up a piece of Tupperware that's held so much dirt and bathwater I don't want in the same room as food. My sink is still clogged, although I’ve hollowed out the gunk inside so an average hand washing can be done without the water cresting the drain. I’m tempted to try Liquid Fire again, but the lowest point of the drain isn’t the clog but the trap, which I’ve invested 74 cents in. The Liquid Fire is under my kitchen sink now, hidden like the Ark of the Covenant, until mankind is wise enough to use it properly.
I really wish my acid story would end here.
I had an old car battery in my trunk, in case I leave the lights on and the primary battery loses its juice. It was in a plastic bag, which I figured was because it was a gunky piece of car. Not so.
Jeff’s car was having some electrical problems, so I figured he might want the spare. I brought it in from my trunk the last time he visited, putting it on a nice red chair of my parents that would otherwise be taking up space in the basement. The chair's right by the door, very visible.
Jeff forgot about a half dozen things when he left my place, the heaviest being the car battery. How he got his car started, I don’t know, but I thought that would be a memory jogger. I was heading up to Connecticut the next week, so I’d bring it to him then. I kept the battery on the chair, because it was right by the door and I wouldn’t forget it.
My Connecticut day comes, and I don’t forget. I pick up the battery, and see the utter chaos that it reigned on the chair. No one told me this was a LEAKY car battery. The plastic bag around it was not ornamental, and not functional either. Acid seeped out of it on the velvet of the chair in two ugly black rings. I touched one, and my hand came back with what used to be red velvet and was now red dye.
I was full of ire. Put a spigot on my forehead and you could bottle whoop-ass. But I was also carrying a small box that weighed as much as Blues Traveler. I had some clothes dangling from one hand, so the battery was under one arm like a 40 pound football. I stepped outside, noticed water from some location running down my leg. One drop hit the concrete I was standing on, and it sizzled.
The battery was STILL leaky. I was remembering what the Ark of the Covenant did to those people who opened it. And that I named my e-mail after one of those guys. (Yes, that's who Belloq really is. Mola Ram was already claimed.) Was this stuff a chemical or my own personal Kryptonite?
It took a Zen like patience to lug that hell in a box to the trunk, it dribbling on me all the way. I was severely tempted to shotput it through the back window of a nearby car and be done with it, but that wouldn’t be a practical solution because I was looking at my car.
The acid wasn’t Brundlefly strength, but there was a discoloration on my right leg. I had a full day ahead of me before I hit Jeff's, and it’d be hard to do in a disintegrating pair of pants. I don’t normally carry a spare pair, since I pride myself on my near-perfect bladder control. So I moved quick whenever I was in sight of anyone, stood close to counters whenever possible, and had several prepared stories I never got to use about spilled coffees and those damn piranhas.
I reached Jeff’s and immediately began soaking the world's first pair of acid washed khakis. I didn’t know if that would do anything, getting the acid off a mere nine hours after it was poured, but it was that or sell the unblemished pant leg to Captain Ahab.
The pants ended up being OK. No permanent damage whatsoever. Unfortunately, I didn’t do a thorough acid test of the rest of my clothing. One drop got on my t-shirt, which now has a hole the size of a Rice Krispie. The blue shirt I was carrying in my other hand when I was hauling the battery got splashed in the left sleeve, which now has pink spots. My boxers got the curse I thought my khakis would: a series of holes running down the right leg. Thank God I wasn't holding it with both hands.
If anyone knows an upholsterer, I could use one. The acid turned the velvet of the chair brittle and it tears to the touch now. I could also use a plumber for the still clogged bathroom sink. I'd worry about finding them myself, but worrying could cause an ulcer (via hydrochloric acid), and I really need to learn my lesson with this stuff. I can trade you the information for a nice piece of Tupperware.