"House" the plumbing edition

While the rest of the world was reading how Congress was going to reward bad financial decisions by Wall Street sophisticates and main street wishful thinkers we've spent a good part of the weekend....and again this morning, trying to discover where the clog in the kitchen drain actually is. Each time we think we've got it licked...it reappears. I can't imagine what people without full basements would have to endure (over the retched stench) while crawling around in a dark, dank, 'who-knows-what's-under-there' crawlspace. How can you clear out so much gunk, run a load of dishes in the automatic dishwasher as well as a big load of hand washing (hey, with a family of six it doesn't take long for the dishes to pile up) and have the drain run smoothly (Hurrah!!) and come back the next morning and get a slow drain again? Frustrating to no end.

And so my daughter has dubbed our plumbing adventure an episode of "House--the plumbing edition".

As I give the whole mortgage lending debacle a bit of thought the bailout seems to stink as much as the gunk in the drain and further similarities include both our drain and Fannie & Freddie needing oversight on a more regular basis and both involve smelly residue, snakes and both may wind up costing me a good bit of cash out of pocket.