An Incorrect Solution

Spring is in the air - and despite the fact that it was snowing only 5 days ago, this weekend has been absolutely beautiful. So of course, it makes perfect sense that I spent much of my time with my arm halfway down the bathtub drain, pulling out enough hair to make myself a new cat. Or a dead rat named Sammy.

Okay, so I'm embellishing a little bit. I did spend 3 hours clearing out the landscaping, trimming back old and dead growth, and dragging it all down to the back line of the property.

But back to the drain. The bathtub had been draining slowing for months, to the point that my children would often end up with a tub full of water by the time they finished their showers. I finally got myself motivated to deal with it once and for all, so I went to ehow.com to learn the cure. And their answer? Baking soda and vinegar. Honestly, aside from WD-40, is there a more universal solution to household problems than baking soda?

I followed the instructions to the letter - half a cup of baking soda, half a cup of vinegar. There was lots of bubbling as the base reacted with the acid, but I somehow ended up with a drain full of baking soda. So I poured in more and more vinegar (one and a half cups total), until the baking soda at last was all gone. And it didn't do one bit of good for the drain - the water still went out too slowly.

At last, I did what I should have done in the first place - I got a screwdriver, loosened the set screw on the drain cap, and with a flashlight took a look at what I was actually dealing with - cat hair - gobs of it. So with a pair of needle-nose pliers, I pulled out a ton of gunk, junk and hair. And voila! The tub drains perfectly now.

So why on earth am I blogging about this? Perhaps because there may very well be an object lesson here. I could have saved myself a considerable amount of time if I had bothered to correctly diagnose the problem before rushing to a solution (ha!) that didn't fit the situation. I simply assumed that this remedy would fix the problem, and that I wouldn't have to deal with the gross stuff. Sometimes, our lives get gunked up with gross stuff (sin) that we try to deal with at a distance, thinking we can mask it or otherwise make it go away with a one-size-fits-all solution. But until we get down on our knees to deal with the truth and clear the gunk, the flow of joy and peace in our lives will be limited.

Alas, this is the way my mind works. I can't clean a drain without turning it into a teachable moment. Well, a teachable moment for me anyway.