If you’re squeamish, turn back now.

As a lifeguard, I’ve dealt with a lot of icky stuff. A kid who smashed his foot open on the side of the pool doing a flip turn? Sure. A bleeding scalp wound? Sure. Someone puking/pooing all over the locker room? Sure, I’ll clean it. The big difference between those and a whole other level of ick? For those, you wear gloves. For the cleaning of the locker room/shower drains, generally we (okay, I) attack them barehanded.

I’ve seen my fair share of drain critters and most of them aren’t any scarier than a ridiculously large hairball with bandaids and soapscum in them. Gross, but never on a level of vomititious. However, once you leave the pool and go home, that’s where the scary drain critters live. While I was in a suite at The Evergreen State College, we had two bathrooms between five girls. No biggie, really, we shared pretty well, with only the occasional issue between who was in when. I tended to be the first up every day, even weekends, and as such, I’d be faced with whatever disaster the night before had left.

Okay, I’m hyperbolizing a little. It wasn’t even REALLY often a disaster, unless it was a weekend… and all students know how college weekends occasionally go.

But one day, I want to say it was a Saturday, I go into the bathroom, get ready for the shower, crank the water on, and then look down at the drain.

Bloody tampon.

I shit you not, bloody tampon sitting there in the drain staring back at me. I seriously considered just backing out slowly, grabbing all my stuff, and showering in the other bathroom, but some part of me realized that if I didn’t clean it up, the other four roommates would just let it sit there and fester indefinitely. After about a half minute of soul searching, I went for it, grabbing the bloody mess by the string and depositing it in the garbage can. Then I sterilized my hand with as much Soft Scrub as I could deal with.

Gross.

Cut to thisafternoon.

Our tub drain in the house of three girls has been backing up for the better part of a week, so yesterday I dug out the half-bottle of Liquid-Plumr I had, and hit it with that. Followed the instructions, everything seemed fine, whatever. I get in the shower thismorning, and it’s draining, but still not as fast as it had been.

Okay, whatever, I unscrew the stopper thing and pull it out and look in. The first thing that gets me is a big wad of ex-paper product. Ugh. I bare-hand it out onto the side of the tub, and it’s streaked with something that I take for rust. Okay, old house, par for the course. Then I go for what seems to be a big hairball caught around part of the drain assembly.

For the full effect of this next statement, please realize that I’m naked and soaking wet in the shower, crouching over a drain hole and poking at things.

The hairball, not so much a hairball. In fact, I’m naked and soaking wet and poking at a gigantic gelatinous blood clot that somehow survived the Liquid Plumr.

In a house of three girls, I can only assume this blood clot came from one place, as I’ve not been aware of any gaping wounds ’round here lately.

The question at this point: do I burn my hand off or just amputate?