When we were first married, we lived in a townhouse-style apartment. Our washing machine drain got stopped up, and though both of our dads are great handymen, neither could get it unstopped. Try as they might (and they tried pretty hard), they couldn't get whatever was stuck in there to come out. So our landlord called a local plumbing service - Spanky's - to come out and give us a hand. The plumber that came out could not resolve the problem either (and honestly, I don't remember what the problem ended up being). With sweat rolling down his forehead, and a resigned look on his face, he said - in a perfect Southern drawl, "I just can't get it. I guess Spanky, himself, is gonna have to come do it."

Wow. We had a problem that was big enough for the head guy to come out. Fortunately, Spanky is good at what he does (I guess he wouldn't have a plumbing service if he weren't!) and he was able to resolve the problem at hand.

Fast forward to this evening.

Nathan was giving Iliya a bath. Our house was built in 1955 & has a cast-iron/porcelain tub in the main bathroom...the built-in plug does not work, so we have a stopper-type plug for that particular tub.

As Iliya was playing, he decided to pull the plug out of the drain - and before Nathan could react, Iliya's washrag was sucked down into the drain, not to be heard of again. Try as we might, we couldn't reach it. It was gone. How do these things happen?! I can only hope that it won't mess with the rest of our home plumbing till we can get it fixed.

We'll probably give the plumbing service a call. And if Spanky's man can't get it...I guess we may have another job for Spanky, himself.