I Flushed a Bunch of Matchsticks and Now My Toilet’s Clogged

I know two people who went to Ivy League schools. Well, I know two of them well. Well enough to know what their bathrooms look like. I’ve also only known two bathrooms to have matches readily available for de-stinking. Two bathrooms where it is encouraged to not leave the fan on, or spray some air freshener, but to light a match on fire, and flush it down the toilet.

I thought I could live the life of an Ivy Leaguer.

Turns out some matches are too long to flush.

I thought I was being refined. I thought I was being intelligent. I thought that this artsy box of matchsticks we’d been gifted from someone who’d traveled to Montana (there’s a stag on the box) would look good on the bathroom counter. Now, the toilet’s waffling between partially clogged and fully clogged. It never gets all the way clear. I plunge, and I plunge, and progress is made but it doesn’t last. Two or three trips to the loo later, it’s clogged again.

Now, I could call the maintenance guy. He’s got a tool that could get the matchsticks out of there easy. But I have a strong sense of shame, and the internet made it sound like toilet snakes are cheap and readily available, and the Drano package which came with the plastic snake didn’t say that the plastic snake would suck to use in a toilet because it would just fold back upon itself, so now I’m also seventeen dollars and one trip to Target deep. Do I go get the snake from Home Depot? Do I continue to wait outside the bathroom when we have guests, ready to go in and plunge after them, likely making them the most uncomfortable people in the world? Do I suck it up and call Marlon and maybe ask him to change the water filter on the refrigerator while he’s up here?

Oh, hey, that Home Depot auger’s only fifteen more bucks.

We’re in business, matchsticks. I’m coming for you. And I will never do this to you again. You’re going under the faucet and then you’re going in the trash.