The Drain vs. The Broccoli

The Super Bowl is here and so is the broccoli. The broccoli happens to be in the basement sink next the washing machine. It made a special appearance in our laundry tub a few days ago when we tried washing a load of laundry. Daryl and I stood there and asked ourselves, "How the heck is there broccoli floating in the laundry tub? How odd!" Okay, really, I was the only one sincerely asking that question. Daryl already had a clue, but he didn't want to tell me I don't think.
You see, a few days before we had Daryl's parents over for dinner. I chopped up some broccoli and put it out with some dip. Daryl was nice enough to clean it up afterward. Rather than saving the broccoli, he dumped all of the remaining broccoli (which was a lot) down the drain and ran the garbage disposal.
The truth came out a few days later when my dad came over to help us and said, "Broccoli really clogs up drains. They're kinda spongy, you know?" Daryl broke down and admitted to stuffing the broccoli down the drain. Now, I can't say I wouldn't have done the same exact thing. Actually, I probably would have transferred the broccoli to a zip-lock bag, put it in the refrigerator, waited about two weeks for it to start rotting, then thrown it away in the garbage. See, I would have taken a different route. Daryl's was just more pro-active.
My favorite part of the whole ordeal was hearing my dad explain to someone else that we had had a plumbing problem. "What caused it?" my grandpa asked.
"I don't know...I guess Daryl thought the garbage disposal was a tree shredder or something," explained my dad. He's so funny. But I think he didn't really think that the broccoli was that funny.
So today, I decided to press my luck. Remember that game show? No whammy. No whammy. Big MONEY!! Anyway, the drain was supposedly fixed, so I put in a load. To really make matters more chancy, I turned that baby up to "oversized load." Oh, this would be a lot of water. Then I waited to see what would happen.
I'll tell you what happened. Black sludge came up to the top of the floor drain. Yes, the very tip top. Ug. It smelled like a combination of dead possum, sick apple, and black sludge. I was so scared that it would just start flooding the basement.
So, I called my dad and he said, "Dump some ammonia and hot water down there." So I did. When the rinse cycle came on the drain REALLY overflowed, but at least it smelled like ammonia and not black sludge.
I'm a gamblin' girl, see, so I decided to put on one more load of laundry. I was waiting nervously by the washer. This time I only did "large load." Then, the moment of truth was here. The water starting churning out of the washer pipe and into the drain. "Go. Go. Go!" I chanted. Here it was, the water was busting on out of the drain pipe on the floor again. "Go. Go. Go," I urged the water to start flowing back down the drain with all my heart. It was all I knew how to do. I stomped my feet. "Go. Gooooo. GOOOOO!!!" Stupid drain. Well, the floor's wet, but the laundry's done, and there's no broccoli in the sink.

P.S. You can see the broccoli stains on the sink in the picture. Yuck.