drilling for vermicelli

It was time to face the harsh reality. After weeks of damp rings around the basement sewer drain, we finally bit the bullet and rented a Roto-Rooter. No more living in fear. No more sluggish draining. No more heart-stopping backups. Now, after a full day of sewer snaking, we may not be ready to declare “mission accomplished,” but we have made solid progress. We recognize this will be a continuing odyssey. Our consciences are clear, and the sewer line is getting there.

ANALOGY
First, a word about the roots. Imagine Dee Snyder was your houseguest for, say, twenty years. Let’s magically extend the glory days of Twisted Sister for the same twenty years to ensure his hair remains magnificent, stage-ready, indestructible, in the mature expression of its twisty fullness. Dee showers every day and loses a couple hundred strands of hair down the drain. Twenty years later, the accumulated mass of thousands of hairs have coalesced into a springy, snarled, forty-foot-long tubular wig of evil nastiness. This is bad.

ETYMOLOGY
It wasn’t until many hours of snaking had passed that I gained striking new insight into the etymology of the “Roto-Rooter.” My hasty, naive assumption was that “rooting” referred to digging or poking, the sort of activity an industrious hog might enjoy, and that poking a flexible metal tube down a hole surely qualified as rooting. This couldn’t have been further from the truth. Sewer lines are full of hairlike snarls of tree roots; removal of said roots requires. . . rooting. Rotate the rooting device for more effective rootage, and what do you get? Roto-Rooter. You could argue that the procedure should properly be called derooting, but that opens up the whole ravel vs. unravel can of worms. Besides, Roto-Derooter doesn’t have the same catchy mnemonic flair. Although it would be a good name for a trance DJ from Amsterdam.

ADVICE
Having earned my sewer stripes, I feel qualified to dispense advice to all you aspiring snakers and wildcatters out there. Listen up, little rooters. Sitting for hours over an open drain encourages a meditative state of mind. After sending the snake down and pulling it back up a few hundred times, I found myself imposing a set of organizing principles on the experience and composing a sort of mental manual on the Principles of Effective Snaking. Here, then, are helpful rules of thumb for the young sewer rat.


Rotation is good; more rotation is better. The task is not unlike twirling spaghetti onto a fork from across the room while blindfolded. The more you rotate the rooter, the more likely you are to snag a wad of roots. Torque is your friend.

Gloves are non-negotiable. Really. And resist the absentminded urge to scratch your nose. Wash your hands twenty or thirty times before lunch.

Three heads are better than one. The typical rooter-head palette includes 1) an arrow-shaped head for general-purpose poking and twirling, 2) a U-shaped cutter head, the more aggressive serrations the better, and 3) a corkscrew-shaped snagger head for capturing root snarls and dragging them back up the line.

Avoid kinks. In all things snake-related, straighter is better. Get too enthusiastic about spinning that roto motor and you’ll find yourself with a snake around your neck.

To drip or not to drip? Running water through the line is useful for diagnosing the still-unclogged clog. Remember to turn it off when it starts backing up and flowing over your shoes. The handy rinsing action also keeps the snake cleaner. It’s all relative, however. And, on the other hand, a wetter snake means your gloves will turn to mush more quickly.

Resistance is not futile. In fact, resistance is good. On the way out, resistance on the line means you’ve run into a juicy clog. On the way back in, it means you’ve successfully snagged a slimy wad and now have a fighting chance of dragging it out into the light of day. If your snake line goes slack, you’ve lost your bounty and will have to go in and hook it again. Fishing analogies are apt.

Unwind slowly. When your sweet bundle of e.coli-laden slime emerges from the drain, it’ll be wrapped around the end of a dangerously-torqued snake. Release that potential energy with utter caution.

Safety last. The Roto-Rooter directions advise against handling the snake while the motor is in motion. Ignore this dictum. Sometimes pushing a spinning snake is the only way to chew your way through a tough patch.