Chemical Drain Cleaner Blues

Have you ever wondered about someone's ability to plug the drainage system of a house or apartment? Everyone sheds hair, everyone pours bacon fat down the kitchen sink, but why do some people get all the clogs? These special people have the plumber on speed dial; they are knowledgeable about toilet snakes, are conversant with the dissolving speeds and ratios of caustic to fat, and they know which midnight gardening supply center has specials on Drain-o. You know someone like this, do you not?

The logical answer is that they are some species of serial killer, Doctor Zhivago by day, and Jack the Ripper by night; hauling unfortunates back to their ghastly temples of evil to skin their victims and dissolve the rest. They dance in their victims skins; and the kitchen sink clogs. The police will never find these people: the observe and respect of the politically correct constabulary precludes the high ability detectives whose nose for crime finds crime, obsesses about clues, and burns for justice. Instead, the modern coppers wait for informants, wait for public outcry, wait for a memo. The serial killers roam and refine their body disposal techniques; they expound them in their detailed journals, opine on the internet on serial killer chat rooms, and nobody questions their recycling, compost practices, and feedings of neighbors with pork bar-b-que.

I was at a dinner party, and I would never have suspected my host of being a serial killer. Her chronic plugged kitchen was, by common assumption, a symptom of the greedy landlord, decaying pipes, and slovenly non union labor practices. I tried to keep a straight face as she chatted over martini time about this clog and that back up. Her kitchen sink needed bran, roughage, some form of the plumbing equivalent of black eyed peas. But my darker suspicions were building in my mind. Just one too many reference to the John Birch Society, property rights, and Thomas Paine. My hand began to sweat on my third martini; and it was a fresh one, fresh from the freezer. I am not James Bond, I cannot carry off the look of a white linen suit, I have been known to drink warm gin from a Smurf sippy cup, and my hands sweat. They were sweating then as my host was light, bright, and air tight about Drain-o versus Fat Dissolver. I choked back my fear with an olive, then a cocktail onion. What could this delicate flower of the feminine gender be really doing to defeat the science and trade craft of the Unionized Plumbers Triad? I got drunk, gorged on dinner party nosh, and flirted with the hired escort I picked up from the message boards at the Mitchieville Public Library.

I only have my worries about my dinner host, from that party a few days ago. The bruises from the after party private pleasures with the escort have healed. The latex catsuit is mended. There is gas in my car, tomorrow is pay day, and the gangbanger housing is suffering from bedbugs. Life is good, but, well, maybe you can put my mind at ease. Tell me I am imagining things.

I, Fenris Badwulf, wrote this.