The weather is getting colder, and many changes are upon us.
As such, my husband and I start to churn through our semi-annual arguments. He will say, We lose an hour of sleep because the clocks turn backward,” and I will calmly explain that we gain the hour because we get to repeat the 60 minutes prior to midnight when it resets, presumably while we are sleeping.
Neither of us quite knows how to explain the evidence we both try to commandeer – that the clocks on the stove and in our cars, will remind us that it’s earlier than we think – even though our “smart” devices will have adjusted without our awareness.
He doesn’t get mad when I stop him from turning on the heat or building a fire when the temperatures dip below comfortable in shirtsleeves. It’s not just an inherited desire to be virtuous and hold out on cranking the heat until All-Saints Day. There is also the matter of dragging a ladder to the roof, where he will clean the chimney of its soot and grime.
“There’s never a build-up of creosote,” he’ll good-naturedly kvetch, reminding me anew that its lack of a fitting door gasket means everything gets burned up fast in hot fires, even the dangerous residue. “But you are right, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
Likewise, I don’t harbor any anger for the foibles of our kitchen sink, which seems to rebel at the first snap of cold as if it is on a similar schedule.
It doesn’t exactly “sneak up” on us: this biannual slowing of pipes leading from the dual-drained sink into a tangle of ductwork in the basement has, with each attempt at improvement, seemed only to grow unmanageable with each passing year.
It’s a longer, slower process to root the problem.
I’ll notice the slowing drain and will mention it to the husband when it becomes a recurring development., He will commiserate and explain that it happens to him, too. He rectifies it by sweeping the basket of vegetable chunks, which he most likely rinsed into the strainer instead of tossing them into the compost.
I will commence plunging when the wash water pools, which will work for a while. But when the water ceases to drain, and it may be time to snake the pipes of the grossness that has settled by way of a drain-impeding incline, he will insist on using one of five different varieties of liquid drain-clearing products available at the grocery store.
Of course, I want to remind him that, as memory serves, the bottle has never solved any of the clogs. He’s always had to endure the most nauseating task of releasing gray water from a midline pipe by wedging himself into a crawl space with a wrench or a snake.
It wouldn’t deny it is gross, or suggest I take over the task, so I don’t want to gloat when he soaked the pipes for two nights straight without as much as an air bubble of progress. Soon enough, he’ll have to change tacks. I don’t need to say ‘I told ya so.’
Though I never expected him to be the one to say it.
“Hey! I got the sink working!”
“With the drain cleaner?”
“Kinda. I think it got the clog loose enough so I could plunge it.”
