In our Spanish apartment, we do not have a garbage disposal. Actually, I don’t think I have ever been to a Spanish household with a garbage disposal, and when my boyfriend came to the States the first time, he was fascinated with the gurgling, food-grinding contraption in my mother’s kitchen sink. We also do not have a dishwasher, so I must hand wash the dishes on a daily basis.
I don’t mind washing the dishes. It seems to relax me, and I do a lot of daydreaming while scrubbing those suckers clean. However, I must be very careful not to let food go down the sink so as not to clog it. Sometimes though I do get lazy, and instead of walking to the garbage can I allow some food to slip down the drain figuring the water will wash it down to where ever those pipes lead. Unfortunately, my laziness has come back to haunt me and now our pipes are clogged. The water will not drain, but instead slowly rises with each rinse of each dish, causing my dish washing experience to last longer as I have to wait for the water to slowly drain until I can continue.
Finally fed up, especially since my boyfriend refuses to do the dishes so the task is all on me, I demanded we get some pipe cleaner to clear out the clogged mess that is making my usually 20 minute chore into an hour one. Yesterday, when the boyfriend got home from work, we went to the panaderia and asked if they had any pipe cleaner. The sweet old couple who own the bakery, and knows everyone’s name, said they did not but instead suggested we should try using Coke. I doubted that using Coca-Cola would work, but politely listened to their instructions and purchased a liter of Coke.
“I highly doubt this will work,” I told my boyfriend as we both looked down the kitchen drain.
“I don’t know, but we could at least try it,” he said.
So, as I am the matriarch of the kitchen, I began the process of declogging the sink with Coke.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Step 1: Pour an entire liter of coke directly into the kitchen sink’s drain.
Step 2: Wait for an hour and let the coke do its thing.
Step 3: After the hour is up, turn on the faucet and let hot water run for about 5 minutes
Step 4: Wait another hour before using the sink.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Now, like I said before, I was a little skeptical about using Coke to actually declog a drain. I have heard that Coke could be used for some crazy things, but just thought it was all a myth. However, when I ran the water an hour later, directly down the drain the water went, not filling up the sink. I couldn’t believe that a 2 and some hour process, with one of the most popular drinking products, could declog a sink.
After witnessing this, I decided to research what other uses Coke had. Some included:
- Stripping paint off furniture.
- Dissolving a tooth.
- Cleaning a toilet bowl.
While I don’t usually drink Coke, or really any kind of soda because I get massive headaches from the caffeine, I definitely will not be drinking Coca-Cola any time soon. I mean, if it is used to declog a sink, imagine what that does to your stomach!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
*Note: The photos were taken from Google Images. The three Coke uses were taken from wisebread.com, and you can click the link to see more. The opinions, thoughts, phrases, and words in this post are my own: © Kalie Lyn, 2012.*
