During lunch yesterday I decided to go searching for something to help me fix the bathroom sewage situation: water does leave the bathtub, but the drain overfloods almost instantly.

So, I quickly left for Clas Ohlson, a leading Swedish retailer of hardware stuff and found a salesperson.

Niklas: Hello, can I ask you something? Salesperson: Mm. N: Well, thing is, my bathroom sewage drain is probably clogged, and I'm looking for something to clear it up. Do you have anything that I can buy for this, like a...pipe, or something? You probably know what I mean, right? S: We don't have pipes for that.

Well, thank you, Gracious, Loveable God, for handing me this person and The Invaluable Info He Chooses To Divulge.

N: OK, it mustn't have to be a pipe, just something to clear it up other than some sort of powder because the drain is made of plastic. S: You should try caustic soda. N: Well, I think that would hurt the drain as it's made of plastic; the property owner is really against it. S: So what, you want to clear the pipes?

By this time, Mr. Salesperson hadn't made eye-contact with me even once.

N: Yes, that's correct. I don't know the name of what I'm looking for, but just something that I can physically jam into the pipes and into the drain to rid it of whatever's probably blocking up. S: You need a drain cleaner. You'll find that in the plumbing department there.

He made a vague gesture towards half of the store and left.

I found the drain cleaner and in the evening made myself look really manly by cleaning up the plastic thing that covered the drain, the drain and the pipe that went from the bathtub to the drain.

Let's just say that I found scents that probably created some short-term memory-loss. And some people think narcotics is the only stuff able to get you really, really wasted and your mind sucked into other dimensions. Hell no! Just try not to get warped somewhere else when you're rinsing off old, hardened sludge, a process through which you trigger smells you'd told yourself would come but that you were really unprepared for.

The thing I bought was a rolled-up, long metal strip with a spiral at one end. It really did the job, but was a little hard to manoeuver. Blixa wanted to help by trying to fiddle with the sludge as I had half a hand down the drain and the other jamming the strip trying not to make the thing go sproink with the bathroom, Blixa and myself becoming covered in matter but I didn't let her, even though she momentarily seemed to have eight paws and four eyes. Told you that stuff was lethal!

Bottom line: even though I may seem to be against it, I love doing stuff like that. You get into something rotten and just turn it smelling great - not to mention we no longer play "Das Boot" every time it's time to shower.