Why You Should Eat Your Vegetables

It all started innocently enough. I cleaned out the fridge and poured leftover vegetable soup, leftover steamed veggies, and old fresh veggies into the disposal. The disposal whirred away, sending my vitamins and minerals through the pipes into the sewer system.

But then it happened. The ground up vegetables and water started to back up into my other sink. Good thing I still had that bottle of drain opener under the sink!

2 1/2 bottles of drain opener, strained muscles from using the plunger, a trip to Home Depot, and 24 hours later I finally called the plumber.

My plumber is not a "glass half full" kind of guy. Before he even looked at the sink he told me that if he had to climb on my roof it was going to cost me a lot of money. My vast knowledge of plumbing came in handy when I assured him that the clog was below the sink, not on the roof.

He took apart one area of pipe - no clog. Then another. Nothing.

I was starting to wonder if my home insurance covered a fall from a slippery roof when the plumber said "eureka". There it was - Big Bertha, hiding in the pipe right before it escaped outside the house (and to the roof?).

The plumber got his handy snake thingy out and went digging to see how far the clog went. When it finally came out, he mumbled "oh oh".

"What", I said.

"You have tree roots in your pipes", he said.

"That's bad, isn't it".

"Yep."

I told him I would take care of it eventually (I hope not), and please tell me how much I owe.

"$260.00, ma'am."

Feeling lucky, I paid the man and sent him on his way.

My dishwasher is hooked up to the same water lines as the sinks, and I started it. Guess what - all those chemicals I poured into the sinks got into the dishwasher too. And they have a CONSIDERABLE amount of detergent in them. I felt like I was in a sitcom throwing paper towels on the floor to catch the suds pouring out of the dishwasher.

While cleaning up that mess I moved the cart holding the microwave (and my cookbooks) to the side. Now I had cookbooks falling to the floor, into the suds from the dishwasher, the suds caused from the chemicals I used to clear up a clog, all because I didn't eat my vegetables.