Palindrome Redux

I had to go to the bank today.  I went to fill out my slip and realized that today, is another palindrome.

7-1-7-1-7.  Backwards and forwards

And then a moment ago, a week late, I realized that every single day since July 10, and up until July 19th will be a palindrome.

7-1-0-1-7 and 7-1-2-1-7 and etcetera.

So much for novelty. After the 19th we will have to wait until August of 18 when again we will be lousy with palindromes.

That was an expression my father and mother used to use. If you were lousy with something, that meant you had a lot of it. It actually stemmed from "lice"--that is if you had lice you were lousy with them.  I imagine the derivative of the adjective lousy as it is commonly used is based on the wonderful experience of having lice.

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On Saturday morning I noticed that the basement sink was overflowing.  There is a trick I use to clean out clogs in the elbow drain but that was not working. Eventually I carted out some water because it was close to toppling over.  I measured the distance from the top of the sink to the water. It was 6 inches.  I took a shower. Measured again. it was three inches. I knew I had tsuris.

 I tried some home remedies to no avail. All day Sunday the water would have cascaded out of the sink had I not bailed out gallons of water and stopped using water in the house.  I had to go to the gym to take a shower and shave.  I called local plumbers. Most plumbers, I was surprised to find out, do not do clogs.  There are some specialty outfits which cost, hold onto your plunger, 300 bananas to unclog your pipe. One fellow was very friendly and he agreed to come out this morning.

I took him downstairs. We went to the sink. The water was gone. For two days the water was hanging around like the neighbor who comes to chat and doesn't take a hint when you are all but begging him to leave.  The clog cleaner comes by and and for 300 dollars there is nothing in the sink. He ran his gizmo through the pipe anyway and cleared the pipes of roots. I was lousy with roots.

We noticed that there was a leak under the sink.  His comment. "You'll need to call a plumber."

The guy was very nice but explained to me that you need a plumber's license to do plumbing, but just a powerful machine to clean major league clogs. So now, 300 bananas after my pipe was cleaned, I need to call a plumber.

Good news is I can take a shower.

Bad news is that I can't afford the soap.