A mystery of bachelorhood. . .

. . .confronted me this week. Well, actually, it's been confronting me for a few weeks, now -- I just got around to confronting it back this week. It's a question that I've been turning over in my head ever since it became noticeable -- or, "to the point where I can no longer ignore it".

Namely, I can't figure out how the hell my bathtub drain became clogged. It wasn't like that when I moved in. I could take a shower for as long as the hot water reserves would hold up, and the water would flow as easily down the drain as beer down the gullet of, well, me. But, for some reason, over the last few weeks I've noticed a steady rise in the water level in my bathtub as I hurriedly shower before going to work.

This is disconcerting for several reasons -- the biggest of which is that it gives you the sense that you're standing almost ankle-deep in dirt soup when you're trying to get clean. That's a pretty unclean feeling. Made even more unclean-feeling by the fact that the temperature of the water isn't as hot on the bottom of the tub as it is coming out of the shower head. So, by the end of a shower, I feel like looking at my feet to make sure there aren't any leeches or algae between my toes.

Another discomfiting aspect is the fact that the drain managed to become clogged during the period that I've been living here. "I" as in "just me". And "I" don't have a lot of hair with which to clog a drain. I have less hair than most of the people I know, in fact. And, what hair I do have, I keep cut very short in a vain attempt to disguise my baldness as a matter of choice rather than heredity. What hair I've lost while showering since moving in wouldn't clog a coffee stirrer, much less a bathtub drain. So, it can't be that.

That leads me to think it's something terribly viscous that exudes from my pores. Again, not the most pleasant thought. I'm not a particularly filthy person. I do my best to bathe daily -- though, there are times when I am called away on secret missions that don't provide the luxury of daily washing. But, in those cases, I carry baby wipes. So, there shouldn't be a great deal of buildup.

Whatever it is, I bought a bottle of Dranō Max Professional Strength Gel -- because I'm a guy. I followed the directions on the label, more or less. That is, I did not ingest, made preparations for repeated eye flushing, and jotted down the number for the poison control center prior to tackling the noisome obstruction. It worked like a charm. The drain flows as well as it would if I'd pulled the plumming out and let the water fall directly onto the ground beneath my home. I'm hoping the Dranō Max Professional Strength Gel didn't dissolve my pipes. It said it wouldn't.

But, free-flowing plumbing doesn't come without a cost, as I noticed shortly after completing the instructions on the bottle. It seems that drain cleaner not only cleans your drain, it also cleans whatever part of your bathtub with which it comes into contact. That means that I now have a sparkling clean area about eight inches in diameter surrounding my bathtub drain -- and it's making the rest of my bathtub look really dirty.

So, now, I'm confronted with a whole new problem: I have to clean my bathtub, or just pretend I didn't see what I saw. At this point, I could go either way on it. It's Friday night, and I don't particularly care to take on any kind of cleaning operation right now. Maybe I'll get to it tomorrow, or Sunday. But, for now, I'm content to avert my eyes while showering (something I'm used to).

However, I'm left with a question. Why the hell don't they just make bathroom cleaner out of the same stuff they make Dranō Max Professional Strength Gel out of? Wouldn't that fix both problems?