Let me preface this by saying I didn't take a picture of it -- it grossed me out SO much it took all my fortitude just to pick it up and flush it down the toilet. Here's the story:

About 2-3 weeks ago, my bathtub started to drain really slowly. You know what I mean -- when the soap scum starts to collect on your shower curtain cus it drains so slowly. I have long hair, so I could only assume it must have been my hair getting down there. But it's a new kind of bathtub with a built-in drain stopper. You push down on it and it seals, you push it a second time and it pops up and opens. I've never dealt with a drain stopper like this before, so I had no idea what to do with it when it started to get clogged.

Finally this weekend I took a shower on Saturday morning, and it just didn't drain at all. Well, it did, but after about 2 hours. So I called me landlady, and she gave me some of that natural enzyme drain opener stuff, which I've had good success with in my kitchen sink, but never used it in my bathtub. You mix it with water, pour it down the drain, then let it sit undisturbed for 24 hours (i.e., don't run the water at all). The 24 hours was over last night, so I thought I'd give it an extra night to break up the hair in there. So this morning when I woke up I ran the water to see if it drained, and it didn't. But that's happened before in my kitchen sink, and the solution was to use a sink plunger to push the clog through the pipe, and then everything would naturally open up.

Well, I used the plunger, but with the self-closing mechanism on the drain, it wasn't pushing the clog through. It was only just opening and closing the drain stopper. But that didn't stop me from trying it a few more times. Finally, I got the nerve to do what I should have done all along -- I reached down to the drain stopper and figured out how to remove it entirely. It easily screwed off, and then I was able to use the plunger easily to push down the clog. But even then the water didn't drain out.

Soooooooooo, I reached my hand into the now exposed pipe, and felt what seemed to be a matted hair ball. The enzymes didn't do a damn thing to it. I tried to pull it out, but it was stuck. So I got a pair of utility scissors and began to snip at it. I was able to get a finger hold on it, and pulled. It almost came out in one whole piece -- the biggest hair monster ever! It just pulled and pulled and pulled, and it was massive and thick and heavy. By the time I pulled it all out, I swear it wadded up into about the size of a baseball -- and it was solid hair, not wisps. It seemed like it weighed a pound. It lay on the bottom of my bathtub, and I contemplated taking a picture (thinking of Maude), but I was running late and needed to take a shower quick to get out the door on time. I thought of saving it for later, but it just grossed me out too much sitting there. So instead I picked it up and threw it in the toilet. I held back a gag, and prayed that it wouldn't clog the toilet as I flushed it down. It didn't, thank goodness.

That was one of the grossest things I've ever seen in my whole life! But when I screwed the stopper back on, everything drained so easily -- there was no back-up. Just the way it should be. I was questioning the design of my new fangled bathtub, but after pulling out that wadded up ball of hair, I realized they actually did a good job. It collected together, rather than going down the drain and clogging it, and I was able to pull it out in one piece. Next time I will know, and not let it get to the point where it doesn't drain. I guess Kohler did something right!