If not about food, then what?

This transition to a food-less or mostly food-less OILCHANGES may take some getting used to.  Not for you, but for me.  I was back in the plant room this morning when I thought that my weekend of plumbing troubles would make a good subject to write about.  And perhaps for someone else, or for me on an entirely different day, it would, but to put it shortly, this weekend we had some problems in the basement.  

In our main line to the sewer, the line where the water and waste from two toilets, two showers, and four sinks converge, we had a blockage.  I'd noticed some water on the floor near the washing machine, ran another load of wash to verify my opinion that the exit from the washing machine was blocked and backing up, and sure enough more water appeared on the floor.  I took some measures and the next afternoon I checked on the situation.  Someone must have flushed the toilet when I checked on the open pipe the washing machine runs into because that pipe exploded like a geyser in my face.  Out shot partially degraded toilet paper, black sludge, water the color of vomit, and a Q-tip.  I got some of this in my hair and on my sweater.  My friend who was visiting from out of town suggested that I walk around in the snow to remove the offending effluvia from my shoes.

 
The neighbors came home when I was walking around in the snow.  This was Saturday night around nine.  No flushing the toilet until further notice.  The neighbors said OK, they would "live funky" for a while, and my roommate chimed in with the old rhyme, "if it's yellow, let it mellow."  In the meantime, I was happy to pee out my bedroom window if it should come to that, and I am happy to report that in the middle of Saturday night, I think it did.  In any case, Sunday was spent waiting for the Roto-Rooter man who, in this case, turned out to be of some eastern European extraction whose thick accent was matched only by his small vocabulary which included "use this," in reference to the drain protection fluid, "old house," in reference to our house, and "tampon" in reference to the possible culprit of the blockage.  In any case, our drains are clear and we can now flush our toilets with our minds at peace.  Meanwhile, I am still not sure what this blog should be about if it is not to be about food.