Accidental plumber

My housemate was up for just a few days and had requested, if possible, a trip to the sushi place as well as to our favourite Indian restaurant.

As I love both, I was happy to oblige, little knowing the adventure that was waiting in store.  Meals duly bought we had just settled ourselves in on the bench for a real treat when my left eye started watering – something had gotten into my eye and anyone who wears contacts will know the feeling: one hopes that the eye will water and wash itself, but after a few seconds, one also knows when that isn’t going to happen.

Off I went to the restroom to remove said contact – being very careful, of course. Rinsed it and put it back into my eye and went to leave the washroom, thinking as I went: well it’s normal that tap water would make it a bit blurry… until I realized that no, this was more than just a bit blurry: my contact wasn’t in my eye! 

Now I had only taken three steps at the most, had had a paper towel partially in the sink and everything: I froze and started looking. Another client came in whilst I was in the process of doing that, and bless her heart helped me search: nowhere to be found. I finally let her wash her hands then when she duly disappeared out into the “world of the blessed and sighted” I continued. Still nothing. By that time I thought that perhaps I should let my housemate know what had happened (I mean I don’t usually just disappear for 10 minutes when I have sushi awaiting me).

She returned with me (and this isn’t a large restroom either) and feeling the benefit of the extra sympathy, I proceeded to unscrew the drain underneath the sink (luckily they must have had problems at some point and whoever had re-fixed it hadn’t tightened it a lot and I was able to unscrew the elements with my hands) and try and sort the contents.

One wonders how I know how to do that? Hmmm…. Maybe this has happened before?

(I do unscrew my bathroom and kitchen drains at least once a year to clean out the accumulated gunk).  That produced nothing, but in retrospect their drain wasn’t in too

shoddy of a state.  I finally gave up – bathroom 1, me 0.

Over the 40+ years that I have worn contacts I have only lost one definitively once before, but this one was only 8 months old so I was not well pleased.  Also somewhat of a challenge to make the return drive, but I had the housemate to rely upon should I have needed her and I did know that it is legal to drive with one eye (having had other eye problems over the years, I am well versed in what one can or can’t do) and fortunately it had been the contact from the “bad” eye.

On the plus side: one restaurant in town now has not only a clean drain, but also a freshly mopped floor (obviously working with no pan or pail meant that what little water I did let through ended up on the floor – they were minus several paper towels).