Unclogging a toilet

Opera is usually associated with the shower, but sometimes opera moves out of the shower and over to the toilet. A clogged toilet has many qualities of an opera; it's dramatic and there's screaming.

It's critical for every modern human to know how to stop a cascading toilet and dislodge the lurking clog.

Maybe you remember the first time a toilet backed up on you. I do. I was at Auntie Brace's cottage. I was eleven. I flushed, but something didn't sound right. I looked in the bowl. The water level was too high and worse, it was climbing. I made a quick decision. I closed the lid.

Now, if I had been a smart kid I would have walked away and let somebody else be the hero. But no, I was curious. I lifted the lid and looked again. (And so began a lifelong habit of always checking the bowl, a habit I'm secretly proud of, since most people who use the bathrooms in movie theatres NEVER look. 'Zup with that?

That day at Auntie Brace's cottage when I took my second peek, the water had stopped a quarter inch shy of the top of the bowl. That's when I made my huge mistake. I flushed again. I still feel bad about that. Where did I think the new water was going to go?

I know now. All over my sneakers, across the bathroom floor and out into the hall. My secret was quickly becoming public. There were nine of us staying at this cottage. I grabbed the plunger and thrust it into the bowl. Displaced water surged onto my sneakers but I didn't care now. I was in the white heat of a plumbing fiasco.

I wailed on that plunger like I was doing CPR on a camel. After six or seven stabs there was a sucking sound and all the standing water disappeared (except for the water I was standing in).

So, it is with the still-stinging humility of an 11-year-old potty flooder that I offer the following advice to toilet users everywhere.

Purging a Clog

1. Vigilantly observe the toilet bowl as you flush. If the whirlpool of swirling bowl contents looks sluggish and the water rises in an ominous way that makes your Levator Ani muscles clench, you have a problem.
2. Swiftly remove the lid from your toilet tank. TIP: This is faster if you don't store 400 hair care products on your toilet tank lid.
3. Stop the water flowing into the toilet bowl by reaching into the tank and pushing the stopper down so it's seated firmly on the flush valve outlet (i.e. pop the plug back on the hole). The stopper is usually located in the dead center of the tank floor. It's attached by a chain or wire to the flush lever. You can't miss it.
4. Calmly hum the bawdy tavern ditty "Slap the Flapper Back Down Boys" while holding the stopper until the tank starts to refill.
5. Put on opera music. I do my best plunging to Puccini's "Firenze è come un albero fiorito" - jaunty, yet short, so the goal is to finish before it does.
6. Put on rubber gloves, spread some newspaper around to catch the backsplash, and hoist your plunger.
7. Straddle the toilet bowl, especially if your upper body strength is under-maintained. With your centre of gravity directly over the plunger you have more oomph. TIP: The water level in the bowl should cover the plunger's cup. If it doesn't, bring the water level up by flushing again, but be prepared to plunge like a piston in a hopped-up muscle car.
8. Bend your knees and sharply depress the plunger. You will hear the 'boomph' of a pocket of air jamming into the line. Keep hammering rhythmically on the plunger to build up pressure in the pipe. Repeat the plunging motion rapidly at least ten times, or until the water disappears with an enthusiastic sucking sound.

Tip

It would be good to give these techniques a dry run, as it were, on a day when your plumbing is stable and cooperative. Your toilet is a fascinating portrait of physics at work. Explore your tank. You'll be glad you did.