Living as a bachelor, I’ve tried to make an effort not to engage in those stereotypical behaviors that make it so clear why one might…deserve to be a bachelor. Like never cleaning the bathroom.

So. Scrub down the tub and shower area. Put a bucket in the tub, fill it with water and the kind of soap that defoliates entire ecosystems, and start mopping. Dump the now black water into the toilet and flush. Hmmm… Why isn’t the toilet draining?…

…and also, where’s the 2½ inch rubber stopper that I always leave on the edge of the tub?…

Two days of toilet battle later I give in and pull the toilet off the floor and go at it from the bottom. (The whole process was completely sanitary because I remembered the plumbers credo “Never lick your fingers.”) A couple of hours of sweating and cursing later, a last desperate stab with a coat hanger (the pile of implements I have attempted to insert in hope of pushing or pulling out the infernal piece of rubber now numbers in the dozens,) catches the little metal ring on the plug and I pull it out.

From the top of course.

New wax ring on flange, toilet is reset. Old wax ring pretty much everywhere in the apartment.

If you want to stop up a toilet for some nefarious purpose, what do you suppose would be the perfect thing to use?

I think, toilets work better without rubber stoppers inserted in them but your mileage may vary.

What I learned: “When it comes to bachelorhood, what’s a little dirt around the edges?”

edit: I was going to include some pictures, but that would just be cruel.