Hair buildup in the shower drain has clogged the primary bathroom about half a dozen times over the past twenty-four years. The warning signs never change. Murky, fetid water begins rising inside the marble shower basin, and with it rises my imagination. Within seconds I have diagnosed tree roots invading the pipes, a collapsed main sewer line, catastrophic plumbing failure, and the financial ruin that surely follows.
Reality is considerably less cinematic.
We’re talking about hair.
I have called plumbers in the past. This time I decided to become one—or at least impersonate one.
I borrowed my neighbor’s hand-held auger and spent the evening crouched over the shower, sweating through my shirt while my knees protested every minute on the tile floor. The auger finally broke through the clog. Victory. I turned on the shower, watched the water disappear, and congratulated myself.
Two minutes later the water was pooling again.
Apparently, I had not defeated the enemy. I had merely tunneled through it.
So I waited for the water to drain, fed the auger back into the pipe, cranked again, and tried another test. This time the shower remained clear for nearly three minutes before surrendering once more to the same soggy defeat.
The diagnosis had become obvious.
I needed to go deeper.
My neighbor owns a drill-powered auger, but when I borrowed the manual one around seven o’clock the previous evening, he answered the door wearing a bathrobe and dripping wet after climbing out of his hot tub. It seemed an inappropriate moment to ask for a plumbing tutorial. Some acts of neighborliness should have limits.
Today I’ll borrow the powered version.
Better yet, I have already bought my own. I ordered a RIDGID Power Spin, which works either by hand or by attaching it to my DeWalt drill. The hand crank removes, the drill locks onto the drive shaft, and suddenly I possess a machine whose existence I was blissfully unaware of forty-eight hours ago.
The RIDGID arrives in a couple of days.
Now I have to learn how to use the thing.
This matters for reasons that extend well beyond one clogged shower.
In principle, I should not have to pay someone hundreds of dollars to spin an auger down a drain. In principle, I should not become helpless every time a clog predictably appears after business hours, on a weekend, or during a holiday. In principle, I should understand that knowledge and self-reliance are among the most effective antidotes to anxiety.
The clog itself was never the real problem.
My ignorance was.
There are, it seems to me, two kinds of homeowners. The first sees a wad of wet hair, sighs, reaches for the proper tool, and solves the problem before dinner.
The second sees the identical clump of hair and imagines collapsing sewer lines, excavators in the front yard, and a plumbing invoice large enough to require grief counseling.
I have spent too much of my life belonging to the second category.
My goal is to graduate into the first.
So I will arm myself with knowledge, a RIDGID Power Spin, and the quiet confidence that comes from knowing the difference between a plumbing emergency and a hair clump masquerading as one.
Of course, I also bought plumber’s gloves, work goggles, knee pads, and heavy-duty coveralls.
I only hope they transform me into a competent handyman.
Otherwise, I have merely assembled an exceptionally convincing handyman costume.
Cinemorphosis 
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