scum

I pulled a six-inch-long living booger from the drain in the bathroom sink the other day. Not “living” in the sense that I had to wrestle it into the toilet while it gnashed at me with its slavering fangs, but it was very clearly a sickeningly large, living clot of scum that had not only taken up residence at the bottom of the p-trap, it had thrived to the point that it was big enough to block the drain and strong enough that mere boiling vinegar wouldn’t dislodge it. To rid myself of this vermin, I had to impale it on the end of a wire brush long enough to reach all the way to the p-trap and drag it out, kicking and screaming, rhetorically speaking, of course. Then, like an invading army sowing the remains of a ruined city with salt, I dumped plenty of Ajax chlorine cleanser down the drain and gave the trap a good reaming with the long brush, in case there was any scum remaining down there that might try to rebuild the colony.