Our laundry sink has never had a plug in all the years we’ve owned the house.
Most of the time it’s only there to drain water from the washing machine, so that’s fine. But occasionally, it would be nice to use it for its intended function. For example, to soak the spa pool filters when they’re clogged up with dirt from less fastidious friends and family, or to clean a dog that’s rolled in something objectionable, or in the theoretical situation when I might want to hand wash a garment. Note I can say that from personal experience, the so-called ‘hand wash’ setting on the washing machine is definitely not up to the task. Although the subsequent shrinkage of my favourite woollen jersey by two sizes may have been contributed to by the water being cut off by the council at that precise moment, when they were fixing the leak in the pipes, meaning that I had to put the wash through a second time. Fatal.
Anyway, I was motivated a few weeks ago to find a plug. I was in one of those modern enormous hardware stores, looking for a line trimmer, and decided to get one while I was there. I asked an assistant to show me where they were, and hoped he’d then leave me to my own devices. The problem was, I didn’t know the size of the plug hole. As is so often the case, I couldn’t find any sort of tape measure when I wanted one, so had resorted to finding a plastic ring from the top of an old drink bottle that happened to fit nicely into the hole, as my measuring device. Unfortunately, the assistant was far too courteous/interfering to leave me to pick out a plug by myself. To give him credit, he didn’t bat an eyelid when I showed him the plastic ring. “Looks like a 41 mm” he said, and gave me a plastic plug of that size. Since the ring had only been an approximate sizer, I was tempted to buy a rubber plug which would be more forgiving in its exactitude. “Oh no, you don’t want that!” He said “They get moldy and nasty. The plastic is much better.” I had a half hearted look under his watchful eye but soon gave up, defeated.
When I got the plug home, it fitted but was slightly loose. It seemed to do the job OK at first, but after an hour a full sink was completely empty.
The next time I was at a hardware store, it was looking for outdoor furniture, reasoning that although the weather was currently absolutely ghastly, at some point it would improve and eventually might be good enough for even someone in Wellington to willingly spend time outdoors. While Simon was delighting in his purchase of a bar stool that cunningly doubled as a small beer table, I went to the plumbing area. I found a rubber plug in the correct size. I kid you not, however, that when I got home, the plug inside did not match the packaging. “41 mm” stated the box, but the plug itself was stamped with 38 mm. Needless to say, it was way too small.
We were again at a hardware store last week, looking for an umbrella to replace the last one that had been destroyed by the wind. This is a common occurrence in Wellington as you might imagine, the death of the current one being the most spectacular for a while. They will break often if they are left up on a windy day, but this one had bent over a table when it was folded up. Yikes.
I had another stab at the plug problem while we were there. The 41 mm shelf was empty, but by now I was gaslighting myself – was it really a 41 mm? Wouldn’t the plastic plug have fitted if so? So, I bought the 44 mm. Way too big.
I now have a set of three useless plugs and still no means of keeping the water in my sink. At the least the plugs are cheap: the capital outlay so far barely exceeds $10. It’s hard to put a price on wasted time and considerable irritation, though.
