A man's job

I arrived home in high spirits on Friday night, a nice long weekend coming and all that. I was greeted at the front door by an agitated spouse (mine) who informed me that the drains were blocked. I had a quick look and by jove, the boss was right. The gulley that collects all the waste from the house (including the shitter, it is a 30's house after all) was overflowing. She said 'You better fix it quickly because I've got a wash on and the water will pour out onto the patio'. This in itself was news to me, I thought we had a few paving slabs out the back, but it appears that this has now turned into a patio.

I got hold of a broom handle and shoved it down the gulley, but the water wouldn't go down. I pulled up the manhole cover, stuck a feather duster handle up the inlet pipe, but there was no shifting the meniscus of debris laden water.

It was at this point that I decided to give up, inform the boss of my decision, crack open a lager and start to enjoy my weekend. The conversation went thus:

'Oh well, there's no shifting it. Not sure what the problem is'.
'Well you better fix it, I'm not having all this water all over the patio.'(see previous comment)
'I'll go to B & Q tomorrow and buy some drain cleaner type stuff'. (I had no intention of doing this, the blockage would sort itself out by the blocked drain faeries over night)
'What if it isn't blocked with gunk, but with something solid?'
'Oh Buddha. So what do you want me to do?'
'I don't know, fix it. Somehow. I don't know anything about drains'.
'Well neither do I, your guess is as good as mine'.
'Stick your hand down the pipe and see if you can pull out what's blocking it'.
'Tell you what, why don't you stick your hand down there?'
'I'm holding the baby'.
'I'll hold the baby'.
'But then I'll have germs on my hands, and I have to feed the baby in a minute'.
'I'll feed him'.
'But you're the man'. The clincher.

Beaten, I put my hand down the drain and pulled out the sprinkler attachment from the end of the hose. Funny how it managed to find it's way down there. I think I had been set up.