Frivolous Friday: What the fuck was I thinking?

Frivolous Fridays are the Orbit bloggers’ excuse to post about fun things we care about that may not have serious implications for atheism or social justice. Any day is a good day to write about whatever the heck we’re interested in (hey, we put “culture” in our tagline for a reason), but we sometimes have a hard time giving ourselves permission to do that. This is our way of encouraging each other to take a break from serious topics and have some fun. Enjoy!

The smell was absolutely putrid. Like, the mixture of rotten cabbage combined with bad fish with a finish of eau de wet dog kinda putrid. And there I was sitting on the kitchen floor, with a wrench in one hand and a pipe in the other, cursing my name–“How the fuck could you have done this, you fool?!” In front of me was the kitchen sink. Why I didn’t think to cover my face with anything, I don’t know. But clearly I wasn’t thinking straight that night. If I had been, I wouldn’t have found myself in the literal position I was in. But I had to take the drain pipes apart. The sink wouldn’t drain. I’d poured lots of hot water down the drain only for very little of it to wind its way down. And as I poured more water, I noticed the smell began to creep up out of the pipes. That smell of rotten cabbage, bad fish, wet dog. Ugh. Just thinking about it brings back the most unloveliest of memories.

As I think about the situation here in 2016, for the life of me, I really cannot understand what the fuck I was thinking that hot water would do to fix the problem. After all, the sink was clogged. It’s not like I put Drano down there. Hell, I didn’t even go all middle-school science project on my sink and put baking soda and vinegar down the drain (which I totally do anytime I’m thinking about it, bc I get a kick out of watching the chemical reaction). What did I think hot water was going to do to a drain pipe filled with bits of old food, some straws, random bits of things that I couldn’t identify and wax.

Lots and lots of wax.

Now, bc you’re not me, if you’re reading this far, you’re proooooooooobably wondering why there was wax in my drain. Well Mx (a gender neutral honorific that never really caught on, but what the hey, it works) Smartypants, if you must know, it was the result of a completely foolish, poorly thought out plan on my part to make candles.

Yeah. You read that right. I was trying to make candles. But how did wax make its way down the kitchen sink?

You see, in the beginning there was a light. The bright blinding light of creation, where the creator decided he wanted to make something unique. That blinding light was the lightbulb in my head and yes, I was the creator. I looked upon my home and thought all was good. All except the remains of the bazillion candles decorating my house. Some sat on candle holders. Others were those huge scented ones you get at Walmart. I didn’t want to throw them away, so I decided I was going to *make*  my own candle.

Now, for those of you reading who have no idea how to make your own candle and who might, upon wanting to embark on such a task, consult a book or the Internet for directions, I say where were you years ago when I tried this without any assistance?!

So yeah, I took the remains of several candles and lit them. As they melted, I poured the liquid wax into a stainless steel pot (which I totally don’t think I have any longer). Eventually, I’d filled the pot about halfway with melted wax.

Oh, I forgot to mention the part where I went to a candle store and bought wicks. In retrospect, I could probably have asked for assistance in how to make candles. Even if the employees didn’t know, they might have steered me in the right direction. Anyhoo, back to the wax in the pot.

I took out a few of the wicks and I thought to just stand there and hold the wicks in the cooling wax. I figured once the wax cooled, the wick would sit up erect and I could clip it down to a more manageable height. Except things didn’t work out that way. As the candle wax slowly cooled, I realized I had no way to get my candle out of the pot in one solid piece. Disheartened, I decided to quit while I was ahead. With nowhere to put the wax.

NO I DIDN’T HAVE A GLASS JAR. NO I COULDN’T HAVE LEFT IT IN THE POT. NO I COULDN’T HAVE THROWN IT OUTSIDE IN THE GRASS. NO I COULDN’T HAVE LET IT COOL IN THE POT AND THEN SCRAPE THE REMAINS INTO A TRASHCAN. Bc any of those would have made more sense THAN POURING THE CANDLE WAX DOWN THE KITCHEN SINK.

So yeah, I poured a nix pot full of candle wax down the kitchen sink, and when it hardened and nothing could go down the drain, I thought some hot water might help. And it did help-to bring up that putrid smell I talked about. But only a fraction of it. I didn’t get the full, lovely aroma until I realized that the wax had hardened in the drain pipes. Which is why I had a drain pipe in one hand and a wrench in the other at the beginning of this post. And the smell. Y’know, bc I’d taken a pipe off and allowed all that fetid stench to infest the kitchen. It was all I could do not to puke. But I’d made a mess and had to clean it up. And clean it up I did. It took a few hours, but I managed to get all the wax out of the pipes, and boy those pipes were filthy. They needed a good cleaning (coulda just used baking soda and vinegar, but nooooooo). After that, I took my tail to bed, bc I was exhausted and just so blasted mad at myself for trying something like that without the first fucking clue what I was doing.

I was embarrassed for a long time and didn’t want to tell anyone. But now I can laugh about it. And hey, by the end, the pipes were clean. So I accomplished something important. Even if I took the most difficult and circuitous path getting there.

(in case you’re wondering, I did this as an adult, not a teenager)

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Frivolous Friday: What the fuck was I thinking?
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3 thoughts on “Frivolous Friday: What the fuck was I thinking?

  1. 2

    It must have been my time spent in BrownieGuides.
    We always melted the wax in the pot and then poured the melt into milk empty milk cartons.
    The wicks were pre-suspended by … something into the empty milk cartons.
    These BrownieCandles were quite decorative but they never burned worth a shit.
    But there was always plenty of wax for the next attempt.

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