CONJUGAL VORTEX

  The polar vortex not only sent Dennis Rodman off to Korea for Kim's bday, it stopped up my kitchen sink. My kitchen usually stays a balmy 38 degrees, but with this wind and minus five, even the most trusty hillbilly cob job can fail. First I tried pouring boiling water down the drain. No go. All it did was fill up the dirty dish filled cavity with soon cold water. Then came the brilliant white, flexy plastic, inverted sawtooth gadget. I plunged it in the drain and came up empty. Thankfully my hair was not falling out while doing the dishes (to any degree).  This tool had previously dislodged a hair clog, the size of a big shrunken head, from the tub. Still, no go in the kitchen. Then I went for the chemicals. The caustic slime only foamed obscenely and the drain remained clogged. Did I dare take it apart?
   I should never touch a car's engine, wire a light.....or do anything remotely called plumbing. The ancient p-trap came apart in my hands. I won't bore you with the play by play. Suffice it to say, nobody on earth stocks the part that I broke. So for now I have a plastic dish basin to wash dishes and a bucket under the drain to catch the over flow. When I throw the soapy water out the door, it freezes in mid air and clatters to the ground. The cats run for their lives, as tiny razor blades of ice come at them from all sides. If I can only remember to tell my guests to change the bucket when they feel their feet get wet, the whole thing should work perfectly until spring. Shewho says it will probably remain this way until I die. Fuck it. Let the next guy worry about it.
   Down at the shul Pigpen and I discovered that my drainage solutions did not solve anything, as we slooshed through 4 inches of water, after that freak rain storm on Monday. Luckily it drained out of the building, before the 50 degree drop turned the basement floor into a skating rink. As I bitched, Pigpen put things in perspective. "You didn't think it would be easy, did you?" I confess, I did. And it was then I felt the vortex pulling me towards White Sulphur Springs. I needed a conjugal.
    When you heat by wood you are trapped at home. Even my mammoth "Mighty MO" woodstove will not keep the hawk at bay when the temps drop this low. I need either the ker-o-sun or the propane to take up the slack. If I leave I keep my fingers crossed that the place doesn't burn down or freeze solid....if fuel runs out. Nonetheless, sometimes a guy needs company. WSSP is a port in the storm. When I'm not around Shewho turns off the TV, doesn't drink and gets her work done. But I could tell by the tone of her voice, that she needed my enabling as much as i needed to enable. I brought wine, split wood on the way in the door and didn't insist on TV. (Take note kids. It's a good balance. Leave the Molly and earwax at home.)  Sometimes a little cold weather is just what the doctor ordered. If I was the CIA I'd be waterboarding Dennis Rodman as soon as he lands.