The next morning, Elara stood before Bertha, armed with two humble soldiers: a dusty box of and a jug of distilled white vinegar . Miso watched from the counter, his tail twitching with skepticism.
Elara had tried the usual remedies. She’d thrust a rubber plunger at the drain, making obscene, sloshing noises that only seemed to amuse her cat, Miso. She’d poured a bottle of sickly-sweet, neon-blue chemical goo down the pipe. It smelled like a lie and worked about as well as a paper umbrella in a hurricane. The Grease King remained, a stubborn, stinking tyrant. baking soda and vinegar for kitchen sink
The Clockwork Dragon and the Grease King The next morning, Elara stood before Bertha, armed
She held her breath. Miso meowed.
And Elara, smiling, reached for the baking soda once more. She’d thrust a rubber plunger at the drain,
Then, her grandmother called. “Darling,” Gran said after hearing the gurgle over the phone, “don’t you know the old magic? It’s not in a plastic bottle from the store. It’s in your cupboard.”
Elara’s kitchen sink, a deep, double-basin cast-iron beast named Bertha, had a problem. For weeks, a slow, mournful gurgle had been her evening song. Water that should have raced down the pipes instead lingered, swirling in a lazy, reluctant spiral before finally, with a sigh, disappearing into the dark. The source of the trouble was known to the household as the Grease King—a congealed, villainous mass of bacon fat, olive oil dregs, and forgotten coffee grounds that had taken up residence deep in the drain’s throat.