Low Flow Toilets
Some years back, in round of existential-angst home-improvement driven fits of pique, I replaced the toilets with the special, low-flow toilets. Use less water. Presumably are more efficient. Harder to plunge when stuck.
Therein is the problem, and that notion brings this back up, as the toilet do, occasionally, back-up. The low-flow toilets have a special, looks like an extra scoop, taken out of the bottom of the bowl, and the problem? A conventional toilet plunger won’t plunge well. Takes a special kind.
How do I know? Granted that I might be full of it, and that might be how I discovered this. But this leads to were I’m headed with Mercury in apparent retrograde motion, low-flow toilets, and plungers.
Low Flow Toilets
This is purely observational, and what I watched, I was on foot, passing through large volume store with a formerly liberal return policy. There was a heavy-set, older man, mop of white hair, but oddly youthful face, waving around a cheap plunger.
“But I bought this here, and you take back anything doesn’t work right, and it didn’t unplug my toilet!”
This is where my own, personal history and background with those low-flow toilets helps, as I understand that a conventional, just a normal, round-looking plunger won’t work as effectively, and I’ve learned this. I’ve learned this the hard way. Hard-won personal experience. Hands-on evidence.
More modern low-flow toilets require special tools. An average plungers is less efficient against a plant-based, fiber-rich diet. Personal experience.
So Mercury in Retrograde is like that one older guy, waving around a used plunger, demanding his money back. Lots of elements to unpack and the right answer? I’m not sure there is one.
Customer service agent, looking at a used plunger, an irate customer himself, an object that failed at its assigned task, and that supposedly plugged toilet. Any one of these elements is easy to identify and with Mercury Retrograde? Could be the combination.
I’m unsure if there is a correct answer.
But now you know.