9:30am: Meet Tina and Frank for a delicious breakfast at Pannenkoeken, followed by coffee and comfortable conversation. Feel pleased to have such lovely people in life. Head home full of goodwill.

12:30pm—3:00pm: Arrive home to discover the Internet is down, for the first time since it was set up 15 months ago. Feel cut off from the universe. Sites are being updated! Emails are going unread! Have Ross call AT&T several times and procure assurance that someone will be inspecting the line shortly. Go about business with no hope that anything will be done before Monday.

3:15pm: Have Ross make cappuccinos, in vain attempt to distract self from total lack of Internet-based stimulation.

3:30pm: Discover Internet is back! Have celebratory email-check. Find nothing of import. Feel put out.

4:00pm: Begin cleaning bathroom, fortified by coffee and return of worldwide connectivity.

4:30pm: Finish cleaning. Decide to try baking soda, vinegar, and boiling water on bathroom sink, which has been draining slowly of late. Have little success but enjoy watching baking soda bubble.

5:00pm: Inadvertently draw Ross in to sink-draining endeavors. Ross gets the bathroom plunger involved. Bits of evil black stuff begin appearing out of the drainage hole, but the situation does not improve. Ross continues plunging with greater and greater vigor. The sounds emanating from the bathroom are now rhythmic and vaguely obscene. One particularly enthusiastic plunge covers the bathroom in grey sludge. All cleaning efforts erased! Feel hard done by.

5:10pm: Begin to be concerned about Ross’s plunging activity. Consider pool of black water in sink. Notice it is now actually rising rather than draining. Suggest that plunging may not be solving problem. Send Ross out for Drano.

5:10—5:20pm: Scoop black water from sink into toilet, in preparation for Drano. Consult Internet (thank goodness it is fixed!). Discover plunging can actually worsen clogs if not done carefully. Begin to resent Ross. Clearly clog is all his fault.

5:30pm: Ross returns with Drano, pours half of it into sink. Wait.

6:00pm: Chase Drano with boiling water, to no avail. Ross renews plunging efforts, despite the fact that they only made the problem worse in the first place! What is wrong with him?

6:05pm: Feel guilty to be using Drano at all; it is probably incredibly bad for the environment. Also wasting gallons of water. Earth dying. Everything Ross’s fault!

6:10pm: Ross takes break from destructive plunging to eat crackers and dip, noisily. Really. First he clogged the sink and now he is making crunching noises? WTF?

6:15pm: Retire to bedroom in the dark to avoid crunching and sink-clog problem, as well as wallow in feelings of righteous indignation.

6:25pm: Realize upstairs neighbors having loud sex AGAIN (or possibly plunging sink; hard to tell for certain). Contemplate fact that their mmm mmm mmm ahhh ahhh ahhh noises are so familiar you could orchestrate them by now. Pull pillow over head. Will their pleasure to be as brief as possible. Send out evil thoughts to world in general.

6:35pm: Ross sends second half of Drano down sink, informs you that no water can now be poured down it until tomorrow morning, to give the Earth-killing chemical time to work. Feel aggrieved. If sink is not fixed by tomorrow, Ross will be in Miami. He will enjoy sun and fun and drinks with paper umbrellas, while you brush teeth in kitchen sink. EVIL THOUGHTS NOT EVIL ENOUGH.

7:00pm: Ross provides dinner, plus gin and ginger ale. Perhaps choice of husband not so disastrous after all.

7:45pm: Can clearly hear upstairs neighbors watching TV. Wish they were having sex instead. At least that would be over in 15 minutes.