The Thing in my Kitchen

I have been cleaning the house. I have scoured, dusted, sponged, sprayed, laundered and ironed. In short, I have done everything necessary to get with the cleanliness program. But does my apartment reward me for all of this care and attention? No. It mocks me.

Something has taken up residence in our drains. The kitchen sink no longer drains. Instead, it fills slowly with fetid water and then subsides, making loud gurgling noises. These noises are exactly the kind of noises that, if they came out of a swamp, would have you looking around for the immense, cthulhoid monster which would be hauling itself out of the slime to eat you.

Periodically, for no reason and when no water is even being run, the drain simply takes it upon itself to unleash a burp of noisome gas.

I know that I could banish the Thing in my Kitchen with the handy expedient of a quart of Drano, but I'm morally opposed to throwing toxic chemicals into public water supply systems. I really try to avoid it. I've heard that a two-liter of Coca-cola has a similar effect. This weekend will probably be taken up with kitchen-sink-exorcism rituals of the chemical kind. *sigh*